There Is No Lube In Space
by Lala to the power of 2
Summary: A journey through Keith's eyes as we explore the beginning of he and Lance's relationship; wherein he learns about sex, trust, and how falling in love can work for your mental illness and not just against it. Also, they both almost die in that huge planet-wide conspiracy Keith gets them caught up in.
1. The Good

AN: So this fic wasn't supposed to be any more than like, fluffy porn, but then plot and drama infected it and now it's a catastrophe. It's still got a lot of fluff and a TON of porn, but. Like, whenever I couldn't think of an idea for alien shit I used a nerdy reference and walked away, so… There's a lot of familiar names and weird science and shit. Look, the plot and romance work, just bear through the rest, I swear this will be a good ride if you can ignore my laziness and overenthusiasm in turn.

AN2: Also, because I couldn't figure out how else to do it, " " " Triple Quotes""" mean three people talking in unison. It won't come up that often. Like, twice, I swear.

Relationships, Keith was discovering, were messy, complicated, stupid, __stupid__ affairs that no sane person would ever chose to be a part of. It's like abandoning all control and reason to the whims of another person and trusting your mental health to them on the hopes that they aren't a selfish asshole or, say for hypothetical example, a __total raving imbecile__.

The only thing worse than dating a total raving imbecile (hypothetically)? That would be the desert. Keith __hated__ deserts. Just, so damn much. So one could only imagine his joy when they docked on the planet and even before they dropped the barrier and stepped outside Keith could smell the heat and sand without even laying eyes on the impending desert.

Twenty minutes. Only twenty minutes since the paladins had docked to land on this highly populated desert planet, and was already sure he hated it here. The air was about a hundred and fifteen degrees in the shade and so dry he could choke on it. In the sunlight it was enough to make everyone - except for some reason Lance, the fucking asshole - sweat and boil in their own instantly-sunburned skin. There was a blood red sand everywhere, from his hair to his teeth to the joints of his paladin suit, and even against all reason the crack of his ass and god damn it Keith had LEFT the desert, he'd gone into SPACE and was supposed to have finally __escaped__ this bullshit. But Allura had to check to see if she still had friends in a place that hadn't known she existed for ten thousand years, so here Keith was in a worse hellhole than he'd ever lived in back on Earth.

They hadn't even managed to make their way into the approximately China-sized city Allura had wanted to come to the planet Elpis to visit yet. The entire vastness of the metropolis was by far too densely populated to land their castle in, so they had to park their ship miles away from civilization. And then of course, the great city Concordia was surrounded on all sides by the craggy rock walls of the basins the city had been built in on nearly all sides with guarded barriers in any spot that wasn't, so even once they'd flown a couple of the castle's podships all the way to the city limits they were turned away with a raised nose and not so much as a hint on how to get a visa to get inside.

In the end they'd manage to find a town not too far from the border, the vast cityscape looming over half the horizon and mountains tall enough to nearly block out one of Elpis's suns spanning the other. Hoping to get information from the locals, the paladins had scattered themselves into the town in search of visas like their lives had turned into a video game and this was the first boring quest.

Keith had noticed just from hovering above Elpis that for a place with so many people around there seemed to be no Galra influence here at all. No outposts, no ships, no stray Galran soldiers wandering about the border town they'd flown into on the castle's podships. Keith found it all terribly suspicious. There was no way that Zarkon would leave a place this conspicuous untouched, especially considering the reason the princess had wanted to come here was because the Geruda had once been Altea's allies in the past. As far as Keith was concerned this just meant whatever Galran influence here was going to be subtle. As paladins, they'd need to be completely on guard in this place to prepare for any more spies or bounty hunters trying to make a quick buck, and any stranger that seemed like they wanted to help probably intended to kill them or worse.

Which is why it was completely ridiculous that the first thing __his__ __own__ __boyfriend__ did when they reached civilization was to start hitting on the natives. Because Lance was apparently The Actual Worst, and to Keith's bad luck the local alien population seemed to be made mostly of out of elegant red-scaled lady creatures with no visible male variations. Keith wanted to punch a tree, but this being __the__ __fucking__ __desert__ there weren't any around.

"So tell me, ladies," Lance was leaning against a finely-crafted low stone wall, a trio of tittering alien girls Keith could barely tell apart hanging off his every word. Lithe and wide-eyed and swathed in yellowed-white sashes for clothing, they all three carried themselves with the same too-interested flirty body language toawwrds Lance. "We're just a couple of space tourists passing through on our way to save the universe, and I was wondering how such a huge beautiful city with such beautiful people ended up springing up way out here in the galactic boonies." Translation: Why would so many people choose to live in a place so obviously hellish and terrible of their own volition?

" " "Oh!""" The three girls looked excited at the question instead of offended like they probably should have been. "That's because of us!" One of them, the shortest of the three, performed an odd dancy little swerve of her hips in excitement, red feather ponytail waving behind her like a banner and scaly tail whipping out behind her so violently Keith was surprised when it didn't smack against either of her friends. "Our species, that is, not __u__ s specifically." She giggled a bit, hopped on the balls of her lizard feet , and gestured towards the vast purple and red mountainscape lining the half of the planet's view that wasn't taken up by the great city Concordia, but it was the girl with the shorter crown feathers sprouting from her hairline like a lion's mane that continued talking in her place. "You see -"

"- Here on Elpis there are only a few species that can survive our harsh conditions, right? Well, before we technologized the CRAP out of this place, anyway. So way back when we Geruda were evolving our ancestors didn't have enough viable mates around and started breeding whatever WAS around," she spun a clawed finger in a small loop in the air.

The last girl with with the skinniest… beak thing hanging just above her wide smile took over the story as easily as if they were passing a ball between them. Maybe he should have been paying attention when they'd introduced themselves, he realized, but their names had bled together and he couldn't for the life of him figure out who was who at this point. Her tone was more... subdued than the others, "Or at least that's how the story goes. Anyway a couple million or so years pass, and the Geruda have evolved the amazing ability to breed with nearly any species in the whole universe. Pretty impressive, right?"

That sounded. .. Keith did not like how that sounded, actually. But that was __probably__ because he was biased against anything sexually compatible with his boyfriend, and less an actual opinion of the race as a whole. In fact if not for that specific fact, he might have found their capabilities rather interesting. Keith watched as Lance's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, sputtering out "Oh, __wow__ ," just in time for Keith to contemplate smacking him upside the head. "Like the Asari, then?"

" " "Yeah!""" the girls cooed. Like the line of a typewriter setting back, the first short girl was once again the one to step forward. "Well, sort of. They can only make more Asari daughters, but if a stray chromosome gets mixed in during conception we could birth either a Gerdua or whatever the father's species was just as likely! Nothing in between though."

The fluffy-headed girl was next again, and Keith wondered if it was even an accident they were taking such perfect turns. She waved a hand in front of her face dismissively, "Not to mention our lifespans are just a flash in the pan compared to them. Who would wanna live that many dusks anyway?" Considering Elpis had two suns hanging on either ends of the sky, that was probably how they measured years - a real night couldn't happen out here more often than once every blue moon. "Life is supposed to be a short, glorious burst of beauty! All fireworks and flowers!"

Lance and the girls all nodded and hummed in agreement at that statement before the blue paladin whistled lowly. "So then, all these people from all these different galaxies started to come here just to uh… Meet Geruda, huh?

They nodded in barely-imperfect unison, the short girl flailing out a skinny arm to gesture grandly at the city spanning the entire left half of the horizon. "Yup! A whole society built, all for the sake of flirting with cute girls!" All for the sake of getting laid, more like. Should they really be so proud of this heritage? Were they that naive, or that… __open?__

"Well, I can understand why," Lance grinned, resulting in a chorus of pleased girly chirps that was just about enough for Keith, right there. He resolved to stop listening and tune this nonsense out, but he couldn't manage to focus on any thought other than how hot and and how __annoyed__ he was right now. His paladin armor was trapping the heat inside like a freaking solar panel, sweating pouring off his exposed skin in buckets and making his hair stick to his neck uncomfortably. They had to figure out a way to get passes into the city, and the only way to do that was with information, and the best way to get information was by talking to people and Lord knows Keith wasn't the person to go to on THAT front. So technically speaking, Lance was not doing anything wrong and Keith could not be mad. But it was still irritating to watch. A swish of bright red feathers caught his attention as the skinniest girl sashayed violently, and Keith realized the reason most of the Geruda kept their crown feathers short or tied up was probably due to the very struggle he was having now. He tried to remember if he had a hair binder on him.

"Who's your cute friend, anyway? He hasn't said a single word this whole time!" Keith's attention was caught, and he looked up in time to see Lance gesturing over his shoulder towards him with an awkward little smile.

"Oh, him? That's just the bae." What the- The bae? Thebae? The bay? What the hell had Lance just called him?

" " "Bae?""" The girls looked among themselves questioningly for a moment, before the shortest one chirped a knowing "Oh!" She turned to the other girls. "Like a FonFon-Ru," she said in explanation, causing the other girls to turn to look at Keith for a moment. Having apparently assessed him, they all three cooed "Awwwww!" and gave Lance a thumbs-up. Keith could not for the life of him decipher what had just transpired.

"I know, right?" Lance said with a bashful grin, and everyone started laughing. Which was all kinds of what the fuck. Was he being made fun of? "So as it were, the two of us have been trying to get into Concordia, but they're not telling us how to get this authentication stuff they're talking about! I was hoping some local gals like you might have some directions to whatever kind of office we'd need to go to…?"

Skinny girl shrugged. "Elpis-born citizens get free pass in and out of the city with no problems. And since we never have much reason to leave town anyway, we wouldn't even know where to start!" The girls all dipped their heads, " " "Sorry!"""

Well that was a bust, then. Keith scowled, resolving to drag his boyfriend away from these harpies now that it was clear they couldn't help them. He finished tying his hair up into the best ponytail he could manage, determined that if he could do nothing else about this day he was at least getting his hair off his neck and drying off. "But you know," The short girl said coyly before Keith could think of an excuse to get them both out of there. "Speaking of short bursts of beauty, you two should totally hang out with us for a while! We know the BEST place in town to get a good drink, and the food out here in Fyrestone is better than anything you can get in the city!"

Oh, those nasty little - "Uhhhh…" Lance took a step back, startled. When he recovered it was with an easy smile, "Well as much as we'd love to join you, I'm afraid we just can't spare the time. Important universe-saving business and all, you know?" Damn straight they didn't have time for this. At least Lance managed to say the right thing SOME of the time.

"Aw, that's too bad," the fluffy one booed cutely. "It would have been fun to spend some time with such handsome strangers!"

"Eh," Lance just waved a hand on front of his face. "He looks nice from here, but his complexion is awful and his hair is only that shiny 'cause it's greasy." Or __not.__

And at this final straw Keith finally stepped forward and snapped , "Oh, what the HELL, Lance!"

His idiot only grinned, easily dancing out of the way of the strike Keith aimed at his head to come around to his rear. Before Keith could turn around Lance was already leaning over to peck a quick kiss to the back of his neck with the affectionate murmur, "You look cute with your hair like that, by the way," with all the deadly precision of an arrow striking Achilles' heel.

A shiver shot down Keith's spine that was the closest thing he'd felt to cool all day, and if his face hadn't been flushed before from the heat it certainly was now. Not fair, that son of a bitch was just not playing fair here. Lance was still behind him, putting one hand on his shoulder while he turned to the girls just enough to call out "It was a true pleasure talking you you lovely ladies, but I'm afraid we really must be going. Thanks for your time, Sasha! Leash, Lala!" He said to each of the girls in turn.

They were about to walk off when the sound of a startled chorus of squaked "Huh!?"s paused them.

"Did I say something weird?" Lance asked with worry.

The Geruda all shook their heads. "You actually remembered which one of us is which!" The short-haired one who seemed to be named Sasha exclaimed. "When we're not even standing in the same order anymore!"

Even Keith had to frown at that. That shouldn't be weird, should it? "Because you all… have different faces?" Lance said with confused hesitation.

"Yeah, but tourists never take the time to notice them!" The shortest girl - Lala, apparently, called out.

Sasha and Leash both looked at each other with their arms folded, the thin Leash mimicking a dismissive "One Geruda is as good as any other, right?"

Sasha continued, "It's not like it makes a difference anyway!" And they both stuck out pointy green tongues in disgust.

"Wow, that's. Really sad," Keith said sympathetically. He kind of wanted to point out their habit of talking in unison and finishing each other's sentences, but figured that was probably not going to win any favor points. Also, he felt like a total asshole for not being able to even trying to remember their names the first time, which… Hell. Just, Hell.

The Geruda waved him off. "I mean, it's not like we don't bring it on ourselves. It's just annoying to be called the wrong name all the time, you know?"

" " "So it's REALLY flattering to be remembered right on the first try!""" Lala hopped up on her toes and all three waved in time. "Bye, Lance! Lance's Bae! Come find us if you change your minds about lunch~!"

Keith gave a reluctant wave back as they wandered further into the bordertown. Conversationally, Lance chimed in "You know, it might not be a bad idea to find them for dinner later on after we regroup."

"Why am I even dating you," was Keith's rather telling flat response to that. Lance only laughed it off, but miserable and jealous in an alien heat Lance just did not seem to be bothered by, Keith was pretty sure he meant it.

Seriously, why WAS he dating this moron? Just because he'd asked Keith out (twice)? That didn't mean Keith had to have said YES! What about this had seemed like a good idea. What had Keith been thinking?

Staring at the line of Lance's shoulders and neck as he walked in front of Keith, he admitted he __knew__ what he'd been thinking. He'd been thinking that he was surprised by how sincere Lance had seemed by the offer, that there must be more to the other boy than he allowed to show on the surface. Lance had thrown him off guard, and so instead of thinking like a responsible paladin Keith had reacted like the lonely gay teenage boy he _ _also__ was. A lonely gay teen who had just been asked out on a date by a cute boy with a nice smile and broad shoulders and Keith was just a human being, okay? A horny sad human being like any other.

And then even worse Lance had gone and taken him out on a really __good__ first date. Which, what the hell, who would have expected THAT? For Lance to ask him on a date out of nowhere and then proceed to be respectful and funny and interested in what Keith had to say? It was easy to get swept up in the moment after that. For a while. Like. A month or so of being swept up in the moment, Keith would say. Is, is how he would definitely put it. Getting carried away, that is.

And then of course it was revealed that Lance was, in fact, a huge moron, and they had that huge fight wherein Keith stopped speaking to him for a week. And they had made up, and Keith had pretty much forgiven him for his stupidity, but after that Keith was just… Wary. He'd gotten a taste of heartbreak and wasn't eager to experience it twice, and trusting Lance after that hadn't been easy.

But Lance had even known that would be true, and the next few days he'd tread delicately like a minesweeper on thin ice. He'd given Keith space and time alone to think, hadn't tried to force conversation when they were together. Slowly edged his way back into Keith's personal space with knees brushing together and a gentle hand stroking lightly through his hair, and when they'd finally kissed again it had felt like a first kiss but better because it had carried the warmth of familiarity (and also because Keith had actually known what he was doing this time.)

Keith's eyes ran down the length of Lance's arm down to his hand swaying between them as they walked, thinking of hours spent with fingers linked together in the comfortable din of the lounge as everyone cheerfully talked over the movie they had put on.

They were walking side by side right now, the backs of their gloved hands only inches away from touching in between steps, the shifting sand beneath their feet pushing them closer together . With a sudden startling desperation Keith wanted to link their hands, needing the comfort of Lance's palm against his and his pulse where Keith's fingers could reach it. He wasn't sure why he wanted that so badly any more than he knew why he couldn't just reach out and take it - some unnamed anxiety stilling his body, wrapping him in tension and halting his actions.

It was all fine, wasn't it? They were dating, and had never bothered to hide it at any point. In fact from context Keith was pretty sure 'bae' meant something like the old ball-and-chain, so Lance had probably just unabashedly told those strange girls about them, right? There was no reason in the world not to just stretch his hand out those few necessary inches and twine their fingers together. And yet Keith still couldn't do it.

"Hey, let's go this way," Lance's sunny voice broke the silence, and Keith looked over to where he was pointing in time to miss Lance grabbing hold of his hand and tugging him down the street they were about to pass by. "Looks like there's some offices down here, we can wander in and out asking questions like lost children."

"We kind of ARE lost children," Keith said back, using this chance to change Lance's grip on his hand and weave their fingers together and breathing deeply as something inside him unwound the tiniest bit. "Children lost in space with no adult supervision except our half crazy moustache uncle."

"Aw, come one, I'm sure at least Shiro counts as a responsible adult."

"I have known Shiro a long time and while I have the utmost respect for him, I can safely say that in that regard at least you are severely overestimating him." ("I've known Shiro a long time, trust me, he doesn't")

Lance laughed, the sound charming and infectious as ever and a tiny smile spread to curl Keith's own lips.

At least, until Lance veered off to talk to a pair of alien women who were, shall we say, dressed appropriately for the unfortunate weather. "Oh, hello there! Is it just a mirage, or have a couple of Goddesses descended to bless my humble eyes?"

"Lance, what the SHIT? Are you __seriously__ flirting with girls right now?!"

Lance looked as though Keith's outrage was for some reason confusing to him. "What?"

Keith gestured exaggeratedly between them. "WE'RE HOLDING HANDS!"

Lance looked down at their linked fingers. "I still don't understand the problem."

Keith fucking hated his boyfriend.

An entire day of wandering a heat-scorched town full of friendlier-than-smart bird ladies and the paladins had gotten a surplus of information about Elpis. None of it helped them figure out how to get any closer to entering Concordia and actually speaking to the royal court at all, because while the Geruda were a chatty race they had no problem deflecting questions they didn't feel like answering with a giggle and a compliment, and Keith was reluctant to admit it but their excessive femininity was proving to be a much better defensive reflex than he'd expected. They may not have been hyper-intelligent beings of high culture, but the Geruda were definitely cunning in their own way and Keith wasn't going to let one of them catch him off guard by any apparent flightiness. A lot more could be accomplished with a distracting bat of feathery eyelashes and a quick hand than people realized.

Being so on edge and overheated all day, Keith was honestly relieved when it was decided they'd just head back to the castle for the night instead of trying to find a hotel to stay in. Quite generally, he needed the stress relief just knowing they were sleeping under the castle's barriers would bring, and then proceeded to be too paranoid of an attack to get any rest anyway. Other than the sand and heat and unenterable secret city, everything and everyone on Elpis was so __nice__. It put him on edge like nothing else.

But on the plus side, the three girls had been right about Fyrestone's food. Hunk had dragged back an entire sack of ingredients to the castle with him, and out of it had whipped up a spectacular dinner that had Lance moaning around his spoon and cursing about how "Oh my God you did it Hunk, you made chili powder, I love you forever and owe you my first born child." Which had seemed excessive until Keith had actually tried the dinner, and promptly also swore to give Hunk Lance's second-born child as well. In fact by the end of dinner Hunk was officially owed three of Lance's future children, two space goats, a mansion by the sea, and courtesy of Pidge: should he ever desire to cash in on it, a full two-minute tongue kiss from Shiro (who shrugged and agreed 'It __was__ a good dinner.')

So dinner had been enough to unwind a bit of the paranoid tension being on a new planet always awarded Keith with, and he had plans to work off some of the rest on the Gladiator. Mind thoroughly occupied, it hadn't occurred to Keith to wonder what Lance was doing right then or how that might somehow affect him. Which was his own fault, really; if he had thought about how his boyfriend tends to operate he might have been prepared for when he was inevitably waylaid in the hallway on his way down to the training deck.

"Slow down, there, Sugar!" Lance called, dashing after Keith with some unfamiliar Altean tool swinging wildly at his side. "I've been looking for you for ages, man!"

Keith was currently in no mood for whatever shenanigans Lance was plotting. "What for?" He asked cautiously, reluctantly stopping to wait for him.

Lance awarded him with a dazzling smile when he caught up. "So, it seemed to me like earlier today you lacked appreciation for the elite reconnaissance skills I displayed," Was he LOOKING to get punched in the face again? "Which is fair since my whole information-gathering technique is pretty much just flirting with the locals. I'll admit that's kind of an asshole-y way to go about things considering you were. You know, right there and all."

"Oh, so you noticed," Keith replied flatly. Was it good that Lance acknowledged this was bad, or was this bad because he knew and did it anyway? Probably both. Everything Lance made Keith feel had always been complicated, he supposed.

"Aaaannnnddd since we still haven't gotten into the city I don't even have anything to show for it. So I figure I probably owe you some kind of 'I swear-I'm-not-a-fuck-up apology."

"...And are you going to keep doing it?"

A pause. "Well. Yes," Lance admitted. "Sorry. Because even if it was useless we DID learn a lot, and all of my other ideas are historically terrible. BUT," He swung whatever he'd been carrying up into a two-handed grasp, and Keith realized it was some kind of stringed instrument. "Since you know I don't actually MEAN what I say, that means I can make up for it with gratuitous apology songs!"

Something tightened in Keith's chest as he found himself, stupidly, rather charmed by the idea. Apology songs, huh? He did know that Lance was still better at smooth-talking strangers than him by a longshot and couldn't honestly tell him to stop when he was the only one of the two of them getting anything done. As for meaning it, well. Lance couldn't talk to people the honey-sweet way he did if he didn't mean at least SOME of it, Keith knew. Just because Lance didn't have any intentions to DO anything didn't negate it when he called a girl pretty or complimented them on their sparkling amber eyes. That was something Keith was probably going to have to get over; and judging from the hopeful excited twist in his ribcage Keith supposed grand romantic gestures were an effective balm for soothing his jealousy. "Are you sure 'gratuitous' is really the word you wanted to use there?"

Lance flickered his eyebrows theatrically. "Oh you bet I am." He began to stroke the strings of the instrument lovingly, and Keith immediately learned why 'gratuitous' was indeed the correct term.

The twanging noise that the instrument rang out was something akin to an electric banjo. A banjo that was currently __on fire__. He didn't know if it was the instrument itself or just how awfly Lance was mutilating it, but he sound was violent in a way he hadn't thought a banjo could possibly conceive, and it seemed to echo not only down the hallway but into Keith's very bones, ringing painfully against the inside of his skull.

Keith buried his face in his hands. "I regret every choice in my life that has lead me to this moment."

Lance frowned and rolled his eyes, and thankfully the cacophony of torture ceased. Slinging the terrible instrument of monstrosity across his back like a soldier mounting his rifle, Lance sighed, "You say that every time I try to be romantic."

"And how did you think," Keith asked slowly, "that this would be __romantic?__ " In theory Keith supposed he could see how it was supposed to be - serenading your lover with a song composed for them and played on a classical instrument. The reality of course was Lance assaulting him with a space banjo. A space banjo he had no idea how to play. Nothing about the experience had been pleasant.

His boyfriend dripped with righteous indignation. "How is it NOT romantic? I'm the MOST romancin-est." He slung an arm around Keith's shoulder. "And if you had let me get to the part of the song with lyrics -"

"Dear God, you wrote words for it?"

"...You would have found out that no I did not, and I was planning on making them up as I went. Spontaneity is SUPER romantic. I'm a master at boyfriending." Lance flashed a grin.

"How lucky am I," Keith deadpanned, beginning to walk away.

Being still attached via Keith's shoulder, Lance chose to go with the flow and walk with him rather than drop his arm. "Hey, you knew what you were getting into when you agreed to go out with me," he said with a hint of warning in his voice. "I mean, do you have any idea how much time I used to spend thinking about girls?" He said with way too much seriousness. "Guess where all that energy gets redirected now, Sweetheart?"

"No," he said flatly, both to the question and nickname.

"That's right!" Lance carried on, shaking Keith harshly by the shoulder. "Bothering you, my little Cherry blossom!"

"Please stop calling me weird pet names," Keith begged, wondering if how offended Lance would be if he ducked out from under his arm and just ditched the guy.

"Not until I find one you like -"

"Which you won't," Keith interrupted.

"Which I WILL, because I'm incredibly charming and you soak up affection like a sponge." Both of these points Keith instinctively wanted to argue with. He could find fault with neither. "Now stand back and prepared to be blown away, because I have like, an entire book full for pick-up lines memorized and you get to experience the full force of my mad seduction skills."

Other than all of the people he was just flirting with? How much did this guy even have IN him? Well, Lance was, Keith reasoned, usually nigh impossible to understand in the first place. "...But we're already dating."

"Yeah," Lance agreed. "Which means I can't use these on anyone ELSE. For one thing, no one would ever speak to us if I tried. Now tell me, are you an alien, baby? Because that booty is outta this world."

Keith just stared at him, bemused. "...We're already in space, Lance. What world could my booty be out of?"

Lance stared back in dismay. "I don't understand why you were easier to flirt with when we weren't actually dating yet."

Keith didn't understand this either. The smoothest and easiest time of their relationship so far had been the period at the beginning where neither of them had any idea what was actually going on or what they were doing. This seemed telling to Keith, but he wasn't ready to let his worrying impede on what was, for the most part, a pretty good relationship so far.

Because for all his idiocy and weirdness, Lance really __was__ a good boyfriend. Mostly. He was understanding and affectionate, could make Keith laugh more than he probably had in his entire life. Was astonishingly patient, allowing Keith all the time he needed to get used to being with someone and never tried to rush or force him into anything, which was pathetically way more than Keith could say for the two guys he'd tried to give five minutes of his time to in the past. And he was someone Keith could spend hours on end with without feeling anxious or uncomfortable in the silence, able to do nothing more than enjoy each other's company and Keith had always believed that was the most important part of being with someone. Not to mention he was, you know. Sort of physically attractive, or whatever.

So it's not like Keith doesn't __like__ his boyfriend. It's just that… Aside from being a good boyfriend, Lance is also sort of an egomaniacal self-delusioned jackass sometimes. And he was an idiot, and he loved showing off and arguments and being deliberately annoying for his own amusement. So no one's perfect.

"Honey I'm an astronaut, and my next mission is to explore Uranus."

And none of his pick-up lines made sense. "Uranus has already been explored. It's all gas and ice."

Lance didn't even look deterred in the slightest. "You know at this point it's just fun to hear how your brain works with these responses of yours." He looked around at the hallway, as if just noticing they'd still been walking. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"I was going to the training deck," Keith answered honestly, because this conversation had done absolutely nothing in the way of relieving his stress and hitting a dummy with a sword sounded like exactly what Keith needed.

Lance's arm immediately dropped from his shoulder. "Well, this has been fun. We'll hang out later, Mon Cherie," which might not have been as awful a name had he not mangled it into sounding like 'mahn cherry.'

Keith stared as Lance tried to retreat. He wasn't ACTUALLY mad at Lance, more… Everything else about today and this planet. So far their only positive interaction today had been the memory of a hot kiss to the back of his neck, and Keith would rather not leave it at just that. "Why don't you join me?" He wasn't going to let that stupid banjo ruin the last bits of today they still had left.

"Eheheheh," Lance held up his hands defensively. "I mean, you know how they say couples shouldn't spend all their time together! We can use tonight to hang out with our other friends!"

Keith hummed. "Good point. Then we'll train together now, and afterwards for the rest of the evening I'll hang out with Hunk." He grabbed Lance by the arm and started to lead his boyfriend down the rest of the hallway.

Lance groaned like the truly mature person he was, complaining "You're the worrssssstt, why are you making me __DO things,__ " and made absolutely no effort to struggle, probably in protest of the amount of effort it would take to do so.

He didn't complain any more when they got to the training deck and started removing their jackets either, Keith asking "You did bring your bayard, right?" and watching the revealed flex of Lance's forearms as he rolled up his sleeves. He barely ever saw Lance's bare arms, he realized suddenly. He should really remedy that.

Lance didn't notice his distraction, griping "Yes dear," sarcastically. "I stopped leaving it in my room after that time the ship tried to kill me, remember?"

And that totally made sense, because Keith himself had had nightmares about that day and he hadn't been the one almost blown out of an airlock. Good to know Lance wasn't a hundred percent careless.

Keith called up for the start of the program with the draw of his sword, and out of the corner of his eye watched Lance flash out his rifle and shift to a position out of sight behind him as the Gladiator activated.

Keith leapt into battle with his usual enthusiastic vigor, charging at the robot with a quick strike from the left, timed just so to dodge the downward slash attack the Gladiator had started off with. After that it was easy to fall into the tranquil fire of a good fight, losing himself to reflexes and the rhythm of combat.

This, he decided as his body swayed reflexively out of the way of a spear lunged towards his ribcage, was exactly what he had needed. All of the useless frustration of the day finally melted off with every metallic ring of Keith's sword striking it's target; every swing and parry and lunge and dodge was catharsis as he wore his body down from tenseness to relaxation.

He was peripherally aware of Lance moving somewhere behind him, dodging stray attacks from the Gladiator in between the occasional shot of laser fire that would sail past Keith's head. Which really did prove they needed to train together more, because Keith had not yet learned when to expect Lance's fires and was currently coming closer and closer to being accidentally shot in the back of his skull.

Maybe he was getting TOO relaxed. Keith needed to rely less on instinct when he was fighting side-by-side with someone, he knew, and would need to compensate if he wanted to avoid them falling all over or maiming each other again. He tried to better split his concentration between Lance and the attacking android, but the end result was the frustrated realization that he wasn't able to figure out what the other paladin was doing from sound alone and was starting to lose ground to the Gladiator for trying. He focused all his concentration back onto the robot, deciding that the best course of action here was just have faith his boyfriend didn't shoot a hole in his spinal column. Dodge low and parry, ignore the laser skimming under your armpit, and don't look over at Lance when he curses under his breath and jumps out of the way of the Gladiator's spear muttering about needing higher ground.

Keith was still having a hard time getting back the upper hand, and now Lance had even stopped the strategically timed rifle fire that had been helping Keith to keep the robot off-balance. He thought he heard something shudder and move behind them, but judged it as unimportant when Lance muttered "Oh, that'll work," and went quiet.

He couldn't completely get his focus back anymore. Keith was beginning to regret setting the training routine at a harder level then he usually worked out on, having apparently overestimated the usefulness of having Lance in there with him. He was just considering calling out to Lance to shout 'What the fuck are you doing back there?' when the Gladiator finally got in the strike it needed to knock Keith off his feet and bowl him to the ground. He rolled away from a stab that clanged loudly against the hard tile floor, scrambling to keep his grip on the hilt of his sword as the robot loomed menacingly above him, the shadow of its blade casting a dark pall over Keith's face in the second before the droid brought it down.

And that is when a burst of three shots struck the Gladiator right in its thin black neck, the robot's head flying off its shoulders and three feet away from the force of the small localized explosion the laser damage has caused, the entire humanoid form dissolving into green pixels before it could so much as drop to the ground.

One thing about the training deck, you see, was the fact that none of them were entirely certain how it worked or what it did yet. Keith knew it had different programs and routines and environments, but no real idea of how to activate most of it. Evidently Lance had stumbled upon one of the environmental features because the far wall now had a series of video game-esque shelf protrusions sticking out of the wall at varying length and height like a staggered and confused staircase leading to the ceiling, too narrow to be considered real steps. Lance had managed to hang himself from them anyway, as when Keith turned around it was to the sight of his boyfriend propped up four feet in the air, left hand hooked on a high platform above him so he could hang from that arm and plant his feet awkwardly on two different shelves. With his right hand, he held his rifle, which Lance quickly dropped out of firing stance to shout "Holy shit, did you see that!?" in amazement.

Keith stared at Lance in equal wonder, still splattered across the wall like a monkey that had been shot out of a cannon. How the hell had he made three dead-on shots one-handed and hanging by three fingers off a two inch ledge? From the look on his face, Lance did not know, either. He quickly made sure to pretend he did though, clearing his throat and correcting "I mean, did you __see__ that? All I needed was you to distract him for three seconds for me and BAM! Saved your pretty behind like a hero valiantly rescuing his princess!"

Keith decided to give him this one. It HAD been pretty damned impressive, enough so that even that now that the dumb shock had worn off a pleasant heat was blooming low in his belly. He may be a terrible flirt and a shit pilot, but what Lance was good at he was __good__ __at__. And that apparently included sharp shooting, which Keith just now decided was incredibly hot. This man hadn't been chosen as the blue paladin for no reason; Keith's boyfriend was a __badass__.

Said badass promptly fell off the wall and onto his face. Keith proved that there was something wrong with his taste by finding this adorable, and walked over to offer Lance a hand up.

Lance took it with a grin, letting Keith help him to his feet and then using the grip on their still-joined hands to pull Keith into a clumsy spin, yanking him into an embrace against Lance's chest at the end because he was the kind of irredeemable sap who actually did things like that, like real life worked the same way movies did and people spun their partners all the time and probably broke out in song. "Hello my lovely," he greeted proudly, managing to wear a smile that looked cocky and enamoured at the same time. He was an embarrassing person to know, and the entire situation was just embarrassing to be in in general. Keith tried to be annoyed but just couldn't find it in himself, relaxing easily in Lance's hold. A smile was spreading across his own face, cheeks growing warm as he felt his heart tighten and throb like it suddenly didn't even fit in his chest anymore, and Lance continued, "No but seriously, I'm completely awesome, right? I thought for second there you were for sure gonna get speared through the face and I TOTALLY blew that thing's head off like I actually knew what I was doing or something!"

"Well, I would have been fine," Keith argued back immediately, because he'd still had his bayard in his hand and had even just begun the motion of bringing it up into a block, and no amount of affection he held for the guy could let Lance feel like he'd one-upped him. "That was something else, though, I have to admit." He lifted himself the last three inches separating the space between them to lean in for a kiss, which Lance met with enthusiasm. Perhaps even a bit __too__ enthusiastically, as what Keith had originally intended to be a rather chaste expression of affection quickly devolved into something more base when Lance dragged his teeth over the skin of Keith's bottom lip before sucking it into his mouth in a way that sent warm trills down his spine.

Keith wasn't sure why he was always surprised when Lance kissed him like this; all excitement and passion like he was thirsty for the taste of Keith's mouth. Kissed him like he wanted him, like Keith was as beautiful and desirable as all of the elegant long-limbed alien women he had spent so much effort pursuing. The new realization every time their lips came together gave Keith a heady feeling, one he happily sunk into now.

Keith could admit they got a little… Carried away, after that. He'd like to use the leftover adrenaline from the fight boiling his blood as an excuse, but the truth had more to do with Lance's tongue in his mouth and his hands, sweaty and too-warm crawling up under his shirt to paw at his back and Keith was just __not__ hard to turn on, okay? And he'd never tell him for fear of his ego swelling up to galactic proportions, but Lance was __good__ at kissing.

Or maybe Keith was just that easy, he considered as Lance ran his tongue along the roof of Keith's mouth. He certainly __felt__ easy right now, melting under Lance's lips like a crayon in sunlight. His hand had moved to the back of Lance's head without him noticing, an unconscious effort to keep Lance's mouth exactly where it was as his fingers curled and twined in dark hair. And while he couldn't say his feet gave out they'd still ended up stumbling backward towards the wall, and even though he might have sworn he was facing the other direction suddenly his back was to it and Keith was pinned between the wall and Lance's tall body. Stupid handsome awful tall body, all pressed up on Keith with his long arms caging him in and pinning him to the wall between two of the odd ledges and had Keith ever mentioned how very, very gay he was? Because that was relevant right here. If he wasn't there's no way he'd have just broken their kiss to let that thin whine escape his throat at the feeling of Lance's hand groping possessively at his ass.

"God, you make the sexiest noises," Lance whispered against Keith's lips in a hot breath. He peppered a trail of kisses from Keith's mouth to his jaw and down the line of his neck, teeth scraping lovingly against his pulse point. Or maybe, Keith considered, the problem wasn't how gay or how easy he might have been, but just how much he liked his stupid boyfriend. He wasn't even sure which option was worse, but either way Keith was pretty much done for at the feel of Lance's hot mouth on his neck muttering mindless praise into his skin. Another hideous whimper loosed from his lips and his back arched like a slutty ferret so Keith's hips could meet Lance's, and, oh… Oh, he was hard right now. That had taken embarrassingly little stimulation, and Keith might have been ashamed but he didn't have time because Lance was moaning like Keith being so pathetically horny was hot or something and shoving a knee up between his legs to rub against him and it was just about all Keith could take.

Keith's head was swimming and his heart was beating about a thousand times a second, and suddenly all the heat and and boiling pressure was overwhelming, and he had to push at Lance's shoulders to put some space between them. "W-wait," he gasped, desperate to catch his breath. "Wait, Lance, hold up."

With only a little hesitance, Lance removed himself from Keith's throat, pulling back to look at him and taking a small step to put distance between their bodies again. His eyes were a little wild, but the overall demeanor he presented was worried as he asked "What's up? Is something wrong?"

With just that small affirmation the anxiety that had momentarily overcome Keith dissipated air being let out of a nervous balloon. "Yeah," he confirmed after a taking a moment to let his breathing return to normal. "I mean, no, I'm fine." His eyes wandered from Lance's eyes down the path of his jaw and neck, down to the defined shape of his collarbone. Lance had a sweat stain ringing the collar of his shirt, and the erection Keith still sported had time to suggest that he'd be much more comfortable if he let Keith take that pesky thing off of him. He licked his lips, hoping his next words would be heard over the deafened clamor of his heartbeat, "I just thought we might take this somewhere more comfortable." Lance's eyes went wide, and Keith could feel his face prickling hotly from how hard he was blushing. Lance still didn't say anything for a moment, just gaping fish-like at Keith until he felt the need to awkwardly clarify "Y-you know, with a couch or a bed or something."

Lance ran a hand through his hair, and the nervous shake in the gesture eased another knot of tension in Keith's stomach. "Well, jeeze, when you put it like that what else could a guy say?" He answered with bluffed confidence, leaning forward to plant another dirty kiss to Keith's hungry mouth, one he pushed himself against. It was quick and delicious, and Keith had spent a lot of time in his life not being kissed up until this point and that was something the two of them would need to work together, he was pretty sure. When it ended Keith's tongue darted out and wetted his lips, and when he saw the way Lance's eyes were locked on his mouth he smiled. He wrapped his cold hands into Lance's sweaty one, held on tight, and pulled his dumb boyfriend behind him before he lost his nerve. Lance stumbled along eagerly, the dopey smile of a man who knew he was about to get some splitting open his face.

A few twists, turns, stairways, and lefts later Keith slowed down and halted as they came to a fork. As far as he could recall, to the __left__ was a nearby room with a couch. Down the right path and further away was the guaranteed privacy of his own personal quarters, but... __Further away.__ Lance naturally asked why they stopped, and Keith bit his lip, explaining his indecision. Lance blinked a moment, and then practically pranced to the front of Keith with an exclamation of "Well, sooner is better, right? I wanna touch you like, yesterday." Keith couldn't fight off another smile, and they started down to the left with delighted urgency. One good thing about Lance's impatience? It kept Keith from having enough time to lose his nerve.

The Rec room was one of several scattered throughout the castle, and they were mostly identical. Two entrances on either side, a transformative table, and two deep couches. Lance and Keith burst into it without actually checking to make sure no one was inside before they were on each other like a pair of octopi in mating season, kissing and groping at each other in a hormonal parody of an embrace. It had barely been a few minutes since they'd been necking in the training deck, but Keith was pretty certain he'd never been this turned on before in his life - probably because the other times he'd been aroused up until now had pretty much all involved his left hand and a bottle of lotion.

Lance was pushing him towards the couch, and Keith let himself be led clumsily backwards until his knees made contact and he nearly toppled onto it. Reluctantly, he pulled back from Lance and the way he was using his tongue to thoroughly canvas the inside of Keith's mouth, but only long enough to finally peel that ridiculous shirt from Lance's damp skin and discard it to the floor where it belonged.

It had been well over half a year now since they'd all been drafted into space as paladins. In this time, no one was exempt from daily group training unless they were halfway to dead, and the results of the rigorous regimine Allura demanded of them were… Quite apparent. Pidge now moved without their footsteps ever making a single sound, Hunk's arms were approximately the size of tree trunks, and Lance… Among other developments Keith had already taken interested note of, Lance had managed to turn his abdomen into a steel cheese grater. Keith knew this fact intimately, because during the numerous occasions during which they made out Keith would take every available opportunity to get up on that. Just. All over that shit. Now was no exception, as Keith took a moment to enjoy the view and run admiring fingertips from Lance's sternum down the line of his stomach, skipping over his belly button to brush against the dark hairs just underneath that trailed in a pleasing line to his straining pants.

Lance laughed a little, partly because he was ticklish and mostly because he was an asshole. "Enjoying yourself there, Darlin'?"

Keith nipped at Lance's bottom lip, catching it in his teeth for a moment. "Shut up and do something useful for once."

Lance more than made good on that, sucking Keith's tongue in his mouth and pushing him down onto the couch with the perfect amount of toe-curling forcefulness. He didn't quite land on it properly, ending up hanging half off the sofa with one foot flailing a bit before planting on the floor while Lance made room for himself between Keith's open thighs. Refusing to break their kiss a second time Lance shoved Keith's shirt up towards his armpits, running greedy hands up the length of his sides and down his stomach with a brief detour to brush his thumbs over Keith's nipple. He didn't even have time to enjoy it before Lance moved one hand to his hip and tangled the other in Keith's hair, and then suddenly there was the skin-on-skin contact of Lance's belly against his and the warm weight of his body settling on top of Keith's. It occurred to him that he might feel suffocated or overwhelmed like before, but there was no panic rising within him now. He knew that he could stop Lance at any moment, and that safety turned the feeling of being held down by a man into something erotic; before he knew it Keith was raising his hips to meet Lance's and when their flies rubbed against each other and Keith realized Lance was as hard as he was he couldn't help but break the kiss to moan into Lance's mouth.

"Madr é , you're so __sexy__ ," Lance cursed softly, his hot breath tickling Keith's wet and kiss-swollen lips. The hand that had been pressing down on his hip was suddenly sliding underneath it to grab at Keith's ass, using the grip on Keith's hips up to meet his and roll them together and Oh, goodness gracious __fuck__. Keith had not known those long fingers viciously groping his ass would feel nearly as good as the friction of their clothed excitement rubbing against each other did, and was quite too busy choking on another humiliating whine to care either way. "And the __sounds__ you make, babe. I swear every one goes right to my dick."

"'Babe' is probably the worst yet," Keith barely managed to croak out in complaint as Lance bit at his ear, distracted by hands and teeth and sweat and the continued motion of their hips against each other. His arms had been looped uselessly around Lance's neck and shoulder for a while, and Keith was starting to feel pathetic for his inability to keep up and do something other than hold onto his boyfriend desperately rock his hips like he didn't know what else to do. Which was a bit on the totally true side, but that didn't mean he shouldn't be able to at least make something up - Lance seemed to be doing just fine, and how many times could he POSSIBLY have done this before?

But it just all felt so __good__. Who could blame Keith for the desire to just lay back and revel in sensation; let Lance have his way with him in whatever no doubt creative fashion he saw fit? And really, it was Keith's first time, wasn't it? He should be allowed a little leeway here. There was nothing wrong with letting his head fall back and his body relax underneath the slow lazy grind Lance had set, no real reason he couldn't just dig his nails into the hot skin of Lance's naked back as he sucked at Keith's throat with the fervor of a man who had spent an inordinate amount of time entranced by that particular region. And come to think of it he was definitely going to leave a hickey at the rate he was mauling Keith's neck, probably a multitude of them and even with the high collar of his jacket there was no way that tomorrow he wouldn't be wearing an obvious array of teeth marks branding his neck and everyone would look at him and know exactly what happened because who the hell else could have possibly…

The train of thought was interrupted by the realization that Lance's hand had let go of its grip on Keith's ass when he had melted back into the couch, and now it was working on the buckle of his belt with Lance purring the words, "Hey, can I…?" against his jaw.

Keith nodded quickly. Lance wasted no time in peeling himself up off of him and sitting upright for Keith to suffer the privilege of the sight of Lance sitting on top of him, shirtless and sweaty and hard against each other as Lance licked his lips and slowly pulled Keith's belt out of his pants loop by loop. Oh fuck, whatever it was they were doing it was not going to last long. Just the feel of relieved pressure off his dick as Lance unzipped the confines of Keith's jeans was too close to setting him off; he'd probably lose it the second Lance actually touched him. Had he bothered to mention to Lance that he was a virgin before now, or was that pretty much a given? He definitely felt like it was a given. He was sure freakin' acting like one, that was for sure.

Fuck it, he didn't care. Before Lance descended upon him again Keith pulled his own shirt the rest of the way off, just in time for his boyfriend to lean down and suck a fresh bruise onto his exposed collarbone, hand skirting teasingly along the waistband of Keith's underwear. Keith shuddered under the touch, driving a knee intentionally up to press between Lance's legs. Lance broke away from Keith's red-bitten skin to groan lowly into it, and he could just shut up about the sexy noises Keith was supposed to be making because that was definitively the hottest sound that had ever been uttered by anyone. He did it again: a deliberate slide of his thigh up against the straining hardness in Lance's jeans, his reward a filthy " __Fuck__ ," cursed against his pleasantly bruised throat as he jerked and ground himself down against Keith's leg.

Keith grinned. "Enjoying yourself there, Darling?" he quoted smugly, biting back a laugh when Lance's eyes widened.

"Oh, you foxy little -" He didn't bother to finish his own sentence, a defiant fire sparking in his eyes as Lance dove forward to trap Keith in a forceful kiss. Momentarily distracted by the way Lance was sucking viciously on his tongue, Keith didn't notice the hand yanking his underwear down until it had a shaky grip around his dick.

Keith immediately bit his tongue, choking them both.

Lance just laughed, snickering heavily around his bitten tongue until he stuck it out and touched two fingertips to it to make sure it wasn't bleeding. "Okay, maybe hold off on the kissing for a while," he said with a shrug, words clumsy around the sore muscle. He sat up a bit again, eyes no longer on Keith's face as he looked down the line of his body to settle on the tented underwearing peeking out through the thrown-open window of his fly. "Just as well; I wanted to see your face anyway," he said sort of ironically considering he was looking intently at Keith's crotch as he pulled down the shorts. "Oh wow," Lance said conversationally, like one observing the pleasant weather. "I didn't think you'd be cut," he said, staring intently at Keith's exposed dick.

Oh, what the fuck, why did Lance have to ruin EVERYTHING? "Why - how - Have you seriously spent that much time wondering about what's in my pants?!" He finally settled on before a shudder racked his body at sensation of gentle fingertips gliding softly against the underside of Keith's aching cock.

"Well, yeah," Lance admitted openly, finally taking his eyes off Keith's crotch to look at his face again, even as his fingers continued to tease. "I mean, I had to know exactly how gay I am for you, right? There's different levels to this shit. Had to consider the situation carefully." Long fingers wrapped delicately around Keith's cock, the pressure of Lance's grip so relaxed it was almost a worse tease than the trailing fingertips had been. "For instance," Lance continued, voice no longer steady as his attention strayed to focus on Keith, "I know for sure that I'm not Glory-hole levels of gay, even if I knew it was you on the other side. Every man has his limits, and it turns out a hole in the wall is one of mine." Keith might have smacked him but Lance had started to lightly squeeze his hand at irregular intervals, and the unpredictable bursts of starlight-hot pressure were worth putting up with even Lance's extreme levels of nonsense.

"Jesus christ," Keith complained, throwing an arm over his eyes and turning his head away at a tantalizingly forceful moment of grip. "Why do you always have to ruin everything by saying things? Can't you just shut the fuck up for one minute?" Lance's thumb flicked against the underside of the head of his cock, and the next words were more of a sob than the threat he intended them to be. "I swear to shit I'm gonna put my fist in your throat, you prick."

Lance, being a total asshole, just laughed and began to stroke his hand up and down Keith's length, still tensing his hand randomly to twist another out bursts of pressure as he went. "You're so classy. The classiest of all the shack-dwelling dumpster hobos."

Keith just groaned, homicidal rage drowned out by pleasure as Lance's hand sped up, stroking and squeezing Keith with single-minded enthusiasm. "You're the goddamned worst," was the most he managed to complain, unoccupied arm reaching up blindly to grope at Lance's shoulder and dig his nails into the tense muscles beneath his fingers.

"Seems like I'm doing something right," was the distracted mumble Lance returned with, and Keith heard his boyfriend swallow a gulp of nothing as his breaths grew heavy. The movement of Lance's hand slowed down again, but this time it was because he had stopped to shift his weight from one arm to his knees, newly free hand grabbing Keith's wrist to drag it away from where he had been using it to shield his embarrassed eyes from seeing or being seen during this too-intimate moment. Lance didn't let go, pinning that wrist above them on the arm of the couch and leaning his weight on it, eyes locked straight on Keith's as he rasped out in a voice so low and sibilant and erotic there was no way it could be intentional, "Quit hiding - I said I wanted to see your face, didn't I?" And then of course, before Keith even had time to fully comprehend how hot that had just made him, Lance's hold tightened as the drag of his hand on Keith's prick grew more rigorous.

His hips arched up into the movement, mind fuzzing out for a moment as Keith let his body jerk and tremble on its own accord. He'd never felt anything this staggeringly intense before, his own hands nothing compared to the exhilarating blaze of having someone else's - no, not just someone else, of __Lance__ \- having Lance work his body, eyes still glued on Keith's whenever he could bare to look at anything but Lance's naked shoulder. "Fuck, Keith," Lance's voice was still doing that husky breathy thing, Keith noted as he watched the rapid swell and ebb of his chest as he took in each deep breath of air. "I even like the way your cock feels in my hand," he observed with a touch of wonder in his voice. "Hey, Keith. Tell me what you like?"

Keith struggled to focus on the words, far too thoroughly distracted by the firm grip stroking him still-too-slowly. "H-huh?"

"Talk to me, Keith," Lance licked his lips, and then because he was a bastard and also because he was good at what he did he stopped the steady glide of his hand to toy with head of Keith's dick, teasing it for a moment with a twirling thumb and rolling fingers that quickly grew wet with precome. "I've never touched another guy here, you're gonna have to help me out." Well he must jerk off constantly then because right now he was doing QUITE WELL at it. "Tell me how you want me to touch you, Kitten," Lance panted, and God Keith really had to stop looking at his face because the way he was looking at him right now… The way Lance was looking at Keith, heated and ravenous like the only thing that mattered in the world right now was doing whatever it took to make come undone, to totally wreck him with touch and God, how it was __working.__

A thin wanting whine was the first thing to exit Keith's mouth when he tried to speak, and even the words he did manage to collect only went as far as "I - I don't… I don't know, just…" The stroking started up again, the pace faster than before in a steady crescendo. Keith's fingers clawed desperately at Lance's back with one hand, only aware of the wrist currently held to the couch as far as the thought that he really did enjoy the bruising weight of being pinned down far too much and his voice broke in a gasp "Just - fuck, Lance…"

"Come, on Keith," Lance, at least, was starting to sound as wrecked as Keith was, little rolls of his own hips jerking his still-trapped erection against Keith's leg. "Talk to me, tell me how to make you come," he begged, grip now deliciously vice-tight and viscous-wet, sweat and precome aiding the hurried glide of his palm around Keith's throbbing cock. "You're so pretty; look so gorgeous right now," the praise was mindless, just Lance running his mouth because he didn't know how shut it off and Keith knew that. Knew it, and knew that if he weren't so crazy hot and halfway out of his mind with impending orgasm he'd have mind to consider the words humiliating, but… But right now Keith couldn't imagine why being called pretty could possibly be a bad thing; wanted to be pretty and sexy and beautiful and drive Lance as crazy and messed up with desire as Lance was doing to him. "Wanna see your pretty face when I make you come," he was still babbling, staring at Keith's face and breathing too close and too hot on Keith's skin and working his hand so fervently like he was chasing his own orgasm and not just filthy desperate to see Keith's…

The heat was overwhelming, and Keith was suddenly aware of every muscle in his body having tensed up like a bowstring. He was holding his breath - when had he stopped breathing? He didn't know but when he tried to start again the gasp came out a strangled cacophonous moan, and he wanted to stop the noises but he was so God damned close to coming the concentration required to force his mouth closed was just too much. In between every heaving breath he was whining so loud it seemed to his own ears like screaming, body taught and shaking until he actually WAS screaming, sobbing out something that could have been incoherent nonsense but also might have been the name 'Lance.'

His dick jerked and spilled over Lance's fingers, movements slowing down to a tolerable crawl as he squeezed out the last drops of Keith's orgasm. Shuddering, jelly-limbed and barely able to breathe, Keith used the last of his energy to lean up. Using his grip on Lance's mauled shoulder to pull him down, Keith mashed their tired mouths together into a much-needed kiss; lazy, messy, and utterly perfect.

The haze cleared from Keith's mind slowly, blissed-out and reveling in the comfort of a kiss as he came down from his high. Lance was still moving, still panting on top of Keith, but now the hand that had just been on his Keith's length was shoved down his own pants. Keith broke the kiss to look down between their bodies, eyes landing on the head of Lance's swollen cock where it flashed out from under the frantic movements of his hand, jerking himself off with fingers still sticky with Keith's come.

Keith grinned to himself. Time to get that payback he'd been hoping for, he decided with a spark of manic glee. He shoved Lance off of where he was still leaning over Keith's right hand, gently directing Lance to sit back with a push to his shoulder while Keith all but climbed into his lap. He straddled one thigh so he could lean their bodies against each other, and now it was Lance's turn to stare dumbfounded as Keith bit the bottom of his fingerless glove, peeling the sweat-damp fabric off with his teeth and letting it fall into the couch cushions while he licked a broad stripe across his palm. Lance wrapped a steadying arm around Keith's waist to rest in the small of his back, eyes wide and lustful as they watched Keith's wet hand crawl between them to wrap around his waiting cock.

"Shit, Keith," Lance swore under his breath. Keith smiled, deciding he, too, liked the feel of his boyfriend's dick, thick and heavy in his hand as he flicked his wrist and began to return the kind treatment Lance had given him. Lance's other arm wrapped around him too, now, and he buried his face in Keith's shoulder with a groan at a particularly severe flex of his hand. If Keith had thought the heat in the room was bad before it was nothing compared to having Lance wrapped around him and panting like an epileptic koala, clinging to Keith and fucking his hips up into Keith's waiting fist.

Keith looped his own free hand around Lance's neck, fingers weaving in thick hair that had gone curly from sweat. He felt heady, small and vulnerable and sexy and powerful all at the same time, but instead of confusing somehow all of the feelings that should conflict just felt __right__. Like something that against all odds, seemed to fit together.

He wanted to share that feeling.

Keith licked his lips, a smile curling them against his will as an idea struck him. Lance had said he wanted Keith to talk to him, right? Keith could do that, all right. Bending his head forward a few inches so his mouth was pressed right against Lance's ear, Keith conjured up the most broken and wanton voice he could manage - not difficult considering he still felt pretty broken and wanton at the moment - and slowly moaned into that waiting ear "La~nce…"

"Holy shitfuck -" Lance sputtered against Keith's collarbone, hands clutching at his back and hip as he jerked and came in a hot splash against Keith's hand. Okay, NOW Keith felt powerful, he decided. He just did that! He just made his boyfriend come in his hand just by saying his __name__! This feeling was why women gave blowjobs, he realized with decisive clarity. This is why people sucked dick, and at some point in the probably very near future he was going to put his mouth on this boy's penis. Well. At least accepting it in advance was a good thing, right?

They finally peeled themselves off of each other, at least separating as far as a foot or so away from one another on the couch. Ah, crap, and Keith was still too embarrassed to look at Lance, gaze wandering anywhere but his boyfriend's eyes. This was so __embarrassing__. Why was this only so embarrassing now? Why not give minutes ago when they'd still had their dicks out? Sex was so weird. Sex was weird and Keith's face was hot with redness and his hand was sticky and what the hell was supposed to happen now, exactly?

"Uh-oh," Lance said stiffly. Keith looked up to see his boyfriend holding up Keith's black tee-shirt, apparently dropped onto the couch in their frenzy and not the floor like he'd hoped. The uh-oh in this situation was painfully obvious - a flashy off-white protein stain, mostly likely form Lance's jizz-splattered hand planting on it when Keith had shoved him against the back of the couch.

"Is - can I wear it backwards? Or inside out?" At least long enough for Keith to get back to his room with his shower and laundry.

Lance turned it around with a contemplative frown. "Uhhh… Well. We could claim it's toothpaste?" He offered weakly before actually looking at Keith - sweaty and hair-mussed and covered in hickeys. Just like anyone who just woke up brush their goddamned teeth. "Or. Oh shit, did we leave our jackets back in the training room?"

Keith had to stop halfway in the act of pulling his disgusting shirt on to bury his face in his hands.

They snuck back to the training deck without running into anyone, which was actually pretty logical considering the actual size of the castle. Keith pulled on his jacket, both of them stopping to observe how it did absolutely nothing to cover up the stain streaking across the belly of his shirt and soaked through on the other side.

"That's - okay this is not acceptable," Lance sighed, abandoning the act of pulling on his own coat halfway through to sling it over Keith's shoulders haphazardly. "You can't go walking around looking like a porno advertisement, and at least mine zips... up…" His words trailed off when he watched Keith actually take the jacket, slipping his own red one off and handing it to Lance as he pulled his arms through the soft sweater-lined material of Lance's looser coat. Keith looked up at Lance curiously, only to see that his normally hazel skin had gone atomic red with a blush. "Jesus dude, you are deadly to my health, you know that?!" He gestured to… All of Keith. "How am I even supposed to deal with this?!"

Keith looked down at himself in confusion, shrugging one side of the jacket back up where it had been sliding down one shoulder. Once again, he had no idea what Lance was going on about. "Deal with what?"

Lance smacked a hand to his forehead. "Nevermind." He shook his head. "It's nothing; you're adorable. Go take a goddamned shower before my mind explodes." He gave Keith a light shove towards the door, and even though their rooms were only a few hallways away from each other they ended up separating almost immediately, one short parting kiss before they wandered off in separate directions in search of cleanliness.

Keith stood in the shower for longer than he normally did, letting the hot… uh… Clear Altean water substitute that smelled lightly of juniper leaves run over his body while he stared vacantly at the soft white walls of the bathroom. Eventually he shook himself out of it, washing his face and hair with the soaps Lance and Allura had given him and kept repeatedly asking if he was using, because at least if he got on board with this "good hygiene" thing they keep railing about everyone would finally stop calling him a greasy Jawa.

Every room in the castle that possessed a shower in it also contained an Altean washing machine. Keith was not sure what, exactly, an Altean washing machine was or how it worked, but it was about the size of a waste paper basket and steam-cleaned your clothes to professional cleanliness in less time than it took to actually bathe. He put his freshly-purged shirt back on with a tired little sigh, leaving his jeans in favor the small indulgence of a pair of Altean pajama pants he'd been given by Coran. It had taken ages to get used to the castle, but now even when they were landed Keith was finally comfortable enough here to feel safe sleeping unarmed - a luxury he hadn't always been granted in his life.

He stepped out of the bathroom back into his small adjoining bedroom. He looked around the room, feeling a little awkward and uncertain for reasons he couldn't name. Well shit. What was he supposed to do now? Should he just… Go to bed? It seemed early for that. Or, no, it seemed __weird__ to do that. He sat down heavily on his bed. His hand twitched with the need to do something, and Keith ended up rubbing at his lightly-bruised wrist absent-mindedly.

Lance's jacket was sitting on the foot end of the bed, strewn lazily where Keith had tossed it on his way to the bathroom. He picked it up now, running fingers along the worn fleece lining of the empty coat, the only coherent thought forming in the swirling fog of his brain being that it smelled like Lance.

The same scent Keith had just finished washing off of his body. He felt his face heat up red again, remembering all of the dirty-awful-wonderful things they'd just done together. Holy shit. Holy shit, Keith had just lost his virginity. Was this… Was this normal? That it had just sort of __happened__ like that, no real thought or planning involved? Was that how it happened for everyone? Keith figured it probably actually was. Sometimes girls had the time and location and situation planned out ahead, but he was pretty sure for the most part sex tended to happen spontaneously. So, this was normal. Keith was normal. Feeling like this was… Probably normal.

And how DID he feel, anyway? Keith wasn't even sure. Satisfied, but at the same time, sort of… Empty. It wasn't that he felt like something was wrong, or regretted what they'd done. Far from it, the fresh memories rolling around in his head carried warmth and contentment with them, it was just… It was __right__ __now__. Sitting in his room alone, holding his boyfriend's coat and probably only seconds away from doing something pathetic like using it as a pillow to sleep or bringing it up to his nose to smell like a schoolgirl with her sweetheart's letterman. This hollow, lonely feeling that was getting so oppressive Keith could almost choke on it, and suddenly he was frozen. Frozen like earlier when he'd been too afraid of absolutely nothing to reach out and take his boyfriend's hand, tense and shaking and lonely and so, so goddamned __confused.__ What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just… stop feeling like this and be normal again? __Why couldn't he move?__

Keith felt his fingers curl into the jacket, grip so tight he might just tear finger-shaped little holes in the fabric. Just that tiny bit of motion was the thread Keith needed to grab onto, dropping the heavy coat from his hands like it was a lead weight and shooting up to stand to his feet in one jerky motion. He didn't know why he was standing or what he was going to do yet, but if Keith stood still for longer than a half a second he was going to be stuck frozen in baseless panic again and started walking, stepping over the fallen jacket and striding right out of his door and down the hallway.

And… That was it. He was moving, even if he didn't know where he was going yet, and that small affirmation that he had at least that much control left was all Keith needed to calm down, breath slowing down back to normal and oddly certain that if even he stopped walking he wouldn't be caught up and petrify again. Well that was… That was a weird time to have one of those, Keith thought with a frown. That sort of thing usually happened in more predictable situations, like that time he'd foolishly tried to work a job in the food industry and proved that people with social anxiety should not try to be morning diner waiters. Disturbed, Keith resolved not to go back to his room yet, not until he felt… Normal again. He wandered down the empty spaceship corridors, bare feet cold against the hard tile.

He wound up, to no one's surprise, in front of Lance's door. Not bothering to knock or alert his boyfriend in any way, Keith walked in, the doors sliding closed behind him with an automatic whir.

"Oh, hey Hon," Lance greeted in surprise when he entered. He had also showered, opting to dress in full Altean sleepwear plus shiny blue bathrobe, looking entirely comfortable and happy even while having been burst in on unannounced. "What's up?"

His total nonchalance was relieving in an indescribable way, and Keith let a deep sigh of air leave his lungs. He crossed the space between them in three long steps, striding over to Lance and unceremoniously knocking him over onto the bed, Keith following after and climbing half on top of Lance to curl into his chest as he tried to sit up. "Um," Lance only hesitated for a moment, adjusting himself to sit more comfortably against the headboard and wind an arm around Keith's shoulders. He smelled more like soap and the tea-leaf shower water than himself, Keith noted with distaste, but other than that everything was pretty good right now, and was finally truly relaxed for the first time since yesterday at least. "Apparently commandeering my lap is what's up," Lance said in amusement. "Not that I mind, but I think we passed the mark for post-coital cuddling like, fifteen minutes ago."

"Yeah, well fifteen minutes ago I was a virgin," Keith mumbled into Lance's shirt. "Shut up and cuddle me, damn it."

From this position it was easy to hear when Lance's heart stuttered and sped up at the comment. "Oh, man, seriously?"

Keith didn't raise his head, only looking at Lance with a flicker of his eyes. "What, like you didn't know?"

Lance's hand wound around to pull him closer, Keith's forehead pressed against his neck. "Well I mean I guess I hadn't assumed that you HAD ever done it, but that's not the same as realizing that'd you'd __never__ __done__ __it__ __before__ , you know?" Keith did not know, in fact. Lance paused, possibly realising this for himself. "Er. So I guess it's more like I knew, but just… Wasn't thinking about it. At the time. A little while ago here," he explained stiltedly. Keith decided to just let him stew in his awkwardness, perfectly content where he was at this moment. Lance swallowed thickly. "So is it bad that knowing that just made what we just did like, a hundred times hotter? Because I was already gonna be able to jerk it to this memory for like the next twenty years, but now knowing that was the first time anyone had touched you just totally doubled the potency of that as spank-bank material…"

Keith, quite despite himself, couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of his chest. This ridiculous pervert, he thought to himself affectionately, letting his eyes slip closed as the two of them laughed in each other's arms.

Keith wasn't sure when they fell asleep or how long he was out for. Just knew that he was waking up still sprawled all over his boyfriend, and sat up carefully to try not to wake him.

The lights in Lance's room where all still at full, but Keith got the impression that it was the middle of the night anyway. Or, human body night anyway, since both space and Elpis herself had trouble with that distinction.

Too awake to fall back asleep with Lance, Keith careful slipped off the bed with a brief stop to turn off the lights and pull a blanket up over Lance as he left the room.

Not quite ready to return to his own room but not certain what else he could do, Keith wandered off towards the kitchen in hopes of scoring some of tonight's leftover dinner before it was ravaged by the others and gone for good.

When he got there he was only mildly surprised to find the lights already on. Even less shocked was he to see Hunk, leaning against a white countertop sucking tortilla soup out of a spoon. He barely spared Keith a passing glance, staring sleepily at the wall and muttering "There's still some cobbler in the fridge."

Keith mumbled a thanks in return, and was soon hopping up to sit on the counter with a plate full of something that tasted a bit like peach cobbler but was somehow spicy-sweet under the fruitiness. For a few minutes they ate in companionable silence, staring vacantly at the same wall and sharing moment of peace. Delicious, syrupy red peace. "This is such a good friggin' cobbler, dude," Keith praised tiredly. "That whole dinner tonight was probably the best I've ever eaten in my life."

"Thanks, man." Hunk didn't even pretend to stop eating while talked, shoveling another spoonful of soup into his mouth as he said, "I'm glad y-" before his words cut off into a choke and a cough when looked at Keith.

Keith frowned. "You okay, buddy? Maybe you shouldn't talk and eat at the same time."

"I'm fine," Hunk said in a high-pitched voiced, then pounded on his chest once, clearing his throat with a final cough. "I'm fine," he repeated in an only marginally more stable voice, but didn't actually look like he was in any real distress. Other than being oddly embarrassed, bright red and looking everywhere but Keith's face as he squeaked out, "Just, um. Couldn't help but notice what a… fun and eventful night you look like you had yourself."

Keith raised an eyebrow, trying to decipher what he was talking about. And then all at once he figured out what he must look like with his rat's nest hair and love-bitten skin, slapping an embarrassed palm over his sore neck in the reflexive hope that he'd happen to cover a bite mark with it. Hunk just laughed, apologizing with a shake of his head. "Oh man, that's not gonna do you any good, dude. You've… you're sporting more hickey than neck right now, my good man. You look like you were mauled by a vampire." Keith groaned, burying his humiliation in more alien fruit cobbler. God damned Lance. "You WEREN'T actually mauled by a vampire, right?" Hunk joked, "Because if my best friend is a blood-sucker I **think** I should probably know in advance."

Keith chuckled. "You know, I think the vote's still out on that one. I'll be sure to get back to you as soon as I figure it out."

Hunk laughed, hearty and infectious, and the two lapsed into another friendly quiet together. Hunk finished eating, draining the last of the soup by drinking directly from the bowl and setting it on the counter, spoon ringing against the inside of the dish when it hit the countertop. Conversationally, he asked "So, did you have a good night?"

Keith thought about that question, idly licking syrup off his fork. "He did not, at any point, stop talking," he stated with a decisive nod.

Hunk burst out with another laugh, this time mixed with a pained groan. "Oh, man, don't tell me that! I can picture it WAY too easily."

It was Keith's turn to laugh. "Hey, you asked, man."

"I did not ask that and you know it," Hunk denied. "I was being friendly and making polite conversation and you ruined it with shit I just do not want to know. I'm already gonna hear enough about this from your boyfriend tomorrow, and I just don't want that kind of behind-the-scenes info on anyone's sex life at all ever, thank you."

Keith grinned. "Well yeah, that's __why__ we can tell you. Your not caring about people's sex lives is one of the finer of your many good traits," he chuckled.

Hunk smiled, too, but it was a bit thin. "Yeah, well. Tell that to my dad," he shrugged, rinsing out his used dishes.

"Huh?"

Hunk blinked at Keith's question, probably having not meant to say that last part aloud. "Er. It's just Dad Issues. He's disappointed in me, I'm disappointed in him, et cetera." He tried to wave off before realizing Keith had no idea what that would mean. "Oh. Right. Well, like…" he trailed off. "It's not that he's a bad person, just…" he tried again, frowning in concentration. "Dad is sort of the xenophobic racist gay-bashing, type, is all," he decided on finally. Keith stared at him. "That sounded bad." Hunk sighed. "Okay the thing about families is, that you love them no matter what! Which means they can be an asshole, or someone you don't like or want to spend time with, but you love them anyway because they're your family, and you've all seen each other at your bests and worsts and you __know__ each other. You can't help who you love, and generally speaking for most people, you can't help but love your family," he explained.

"I… Think I can understand that," Keith said hesitantly. He'd been in and out of probably a dozen foster homes, seen and lived with all kinds of families as a kid. Never been a PART of one, but he'd seen them.

Hunk was still frowning like he felt like he hadn't explained the situation adequately. "Yeah, maybe you can," he said after a moment. He shrugged stiffly. "Anyway, the way it is with my dad is that we don't happen to get along so well. Different ideas, mostly, but if it wasn't for my mom and sister we'd probably never speak to each other." Hunk put the clean dishes away, and then turned and automatically grabbed the now-empty plate from Keith's hand before he had the chance to protest that he could clean it himself, turning back to the sink and continuing to speak. "I still love him, and I respect him and respect that he's mostly the way he is because his ideas are old-fashioned and also grandpa was a huge dick, but…" He ran the sink, and Keith twitched with the desire to stop him and clean up after himself, but it seemed more important to let Hunk use the minor chore as anxiety-born distraction tactic it seemed to be. "But once, when I was like eleven or twelve there was a gay wedding at the local church and I can still remember he turned to me and said 'If you ever to try to bring a faggot home and call him your boyfriend I'll kick you both out on the streets.' Like, holy crap, Dad! Good to know your love is conditional on who I get a crush on in the future!"

"Wow," Keith winced empathetically. "That's fucked up,"

Hunk shrugged again, putting Keith's clean plate away too, and then grabbed a sponge to wipe down the still-clean counter. "He wouldn't actually do it - Mom would throw a fit at the prospect of turning ANYONE out on the streets, much less her own son. But yeah, for the most part. We'd just as soon have nothing to do with one another." He finally ran out of things to clean or pretend to clean and looked at Keith again, still sitting on the countertop. "But… Yeah. You can love someone and still recognize that your life would be better off without them, you know? Some ties are ones that you have to cut, because they're toxic and they'll eat you alive."

Keith slipped off the counter and onto his feet. "And… Your dad is one of those toxic relationships?" He asked after a moment.

"Nahhhhh," Hunk said with an easy smile. "Just stating a general fact. I'm a pretty forgiving guy, personally. All we have to do is not talk about anything that involves personal opinions and me and Dad get along just fine." He laughed, slapping Keith's shoulder jovially. "But I 'spose I don't need to explain how families work to you now that you've got us, eh?"

Keith smiled at him. "Whether I like you all or not, right?"

Hunk returned it with a grin of his own. "Now you're getting it," he said cheerfully. "Now if you'll excuse me, we should probably get our asses some sleep. We're both gonna look ridiculous if Lance is more well-rested than us tomorrow after so clearly getting laid."

Keith looked down at as much of himself as he could, and even from his own point of view could see a hickey glaring red on his collar bone just under the collar of his shirt. "As much as I'd like to, there's really no hiding it, is there?"

Hunk patted his shoulder sympathetically. "None at all." His smile beamed even further. "And if Shiro gives you guys The Talk? THAT I wanna hear about. I bet it'll be great."

Keith found himself oddly grateful for the fact that all of his friends were, without exception, kind of assholes. It was a good place to call home.


	2. The Bad (complete)

Super special thanks to my betas Titty-Now-Titty-Always and Damnspider, without whom this chapter would never have been completed.

* * *

"You got it?" Pidge threw the distracted question over her shoulder at Keith, trying to focus on her own delicate task of affixing thin wiring to the lid of a shoddy Altean toybox.

Keith practically rolled his eyes. As if he didn't know how to make an explosive, this girl talked. "Oh, I'm already done," he assured, turning the flame off of his plasma torch as he finished soldering the in the last trigger. He waited for her to finish off the box and bring it over, the two of them carefully sliding his half of the project into place and safely locking it in.

"After this it just needs to be armed, right?" Keith asked once it was done, looking over the small plastic crate to make sure they hadn't left it looking any more suspicious than they needed it to be.

Pidge nodded, pushing her glasses up her nose with a dramatic flare. "We're set," she confirmed proudly, tucking the box under her arm and turning towards the door leading out of her lion's bay to the outside world. "Let's go fuck some shit up."

It was early morning, and Keith and Pidge had work to do. Actually, everyone had work to, but today Keith and Pidge were doing their work together because the paladins worked on a rotation system for reasons involving no one being allowed off by themselves and Hunk and Lance's unfortunate habit of trying to call each other as field trip buddies at first opportunity. But either way today Keith and Pidge had work to do together, which as far as the two of them were concerned just meant today was going to be as efficient as a well-oiled motherfucker. The two of them were, if he understood the concept correctly, best bros themselves.

Their friendship, it can be noted, was based almost entirely on mutual suppressed rage. When the two of them were alone they could drop all pretenses about good cheer and politeness, freely complaining and gossiping and just generally being bitchy without any kind of worry about anyone's stupid feelings getting hurt. It was incredibly cathartic.

"Here looks good, right?" The two of them wandered into Fyrestone's red-tarred streets, finding a side road with less foot traffic on the sandstone sidewalks than the most of the area and even fewer passing vehicles. Pidge set the trap box down on the sidewalk, not quite in the middle of anyone's way but obvious enough to catch their eye. The reason the street wasn't very busy was because it was on one of Fyrestone's few steep hills, so all they had to do to find a vantage point out of sight to watch from was wander up the hill a little ways and hang out behind the low stone wall separating the walkway from the street.

And the other reason Keith liked hanging out with Pidge? Because they did shit like this together. Pranks were an endeavor Keith didn't normally deign to waste his time on, but a favorite pastime of the green paladin. And as they were no longer allowed to team up with her preferred partner of Lance because the two of them had no sense of scale and tended to wind up endangering lives (" _Why_ _does_ _something_ _always_ _blow_ _up_ _when_ _I_ _leave_ _you_ _two_ _alone_?!"; " _It's_ _called_ friendship, _Hunk, and it means we're doing_ _it right!"),_ Pidge had been in need of a new partner in crime. Keith had mainly needed something to do with his time, and had agreed because hanging out with Pidge was as good of an idea as any other. As it turned out, rigging Lance's underwear drawer with that itchy space pepper was a blast and a half, and Keith had ended up her go-to coconspirator when she needed stress relief. And as Keith was fully aware of the absolute bullshit that was Pidge's life, any kind of mischief she needed to get into as an outlet for her bitterness and rage was all good by his standards.

They waited with patience, watching as passersby glanced at the box as they walked by it, a few stopping to poke at it tentatively before moving on. Finally they struck gold, an onion-skinned alien man stopping to pick the box up and inspect it curiously. Keith and Pidge held their breaths, watching warily as the man shook the box to listen to the slight rattle the device made against the inside walls. Pidge leaned forward over the side if the short wall, watching with heart-pounding anticipation as the alien lifted open the latch of the box's lid… And after the loud popping noise and burst of high-speed indigo, burst out laughing at the absolute bewilderment on the alien's ink-stained face.

The onion man blinked in confusion, box slipping out of his hands and falling to the ground like Elmer Fudd dropping a present from Bugs and looking around frantically as if the answer to what had just happened to him was hiding in the bushes somewhere nearby. This was of course ironically true, but he did not manage to look far enough up the hill to notice Keith and Pidge where they were trying to smother raucous laughter into silence under their hands. Keith nudged Pidge's shoulder, nodding down the hill. She nodded back and sucked in a deep breath of air to calm her laughter. Schooling her face into seriousness, she jumped over the wall and started dashing down the hill towards the confused alien.

"Oh, no!" She shouted, and Keith wished so desperately he could see what kind of face she was wearing for this act. "Oh no oh no, oh no! My ink!"

The alien man looked up at Pidge as she ran towards him, dumbly sputtering out "Uhhhhm?"

"The ink I need for my boss! I can't believe I dropped it, I can't believe it EXPLODED! Of course it exploded, I had the carbanoid nitrodioxicide in there with it! I'm such an idiot!" She grabbed at her hair dramatically, reaching the man and picking the box up off the ground to look inside like maybe there'd be some ink leftover she could still use. "Oh, nooooo…"

Keith hopped over the wall and started down to meet the just as the onion man was apologizing "Oh, oh goodness now, I am so very sorry for opening that…" He slugged out in a thick voice, holding his leafy hands up in an automatic defensive stance.

Pidge stood back up, looking like she had just noticed him for the first time now. "And oh God, look at your face! I made you BLUE! I'm sorry sir, I'm so sorry!"

The alien shook his teardrop-shaped head quickly. "N-no…" He dismissed awkwardly, but by then Keith was running at them and interrupted whatever he was trying to say.

"Fox! Fox, what happened to the ink?! It looks like there was an explosion here or something!" Keith shouted, doing his best to look mad and worried at the same time as he ran down to meet them.

"Dana!" The two of them had long ago discovered aliens tended to regard he and Pidge as siblings, even when standing next to the other paladins. They said it was because of their similar physical builds, but Keith knew it was because the strangers could recognize the matching expressions of utter disdain pairing their faces. Either way he and Pidge had learned to use this assumption to their advantage, and she had coached him into a near perfect "Codependent siblings" act with her to suit their nefarious purposes. Nefarious, of course, meaning they usually used it when they were trying to escape the repercussions of their mischief. Pidge stared up at him now with watery eyes, croaking apologetically "I- I dropped the box I was picking up for my boss and when I came back looking for it…" They both turned their heads to look at the flustered onion man. "Th- the carbodium was in there, too."

"Damn it, Fox, if you don't get that delivery to him you'll be fired again!" Keith scolded. "You shouldn't have had them both in there at the same time! And you!" He directed his glare the alien. "What were you doing opening a random box in the middle of the street, anyway?"

The onion man shook his his head quickly again, sputtering out "I'm sorry, it was… I was just…"

"What are you gonna do now, Fox?" Keith ignored him, rounding again on his pretend sister. "Can we replace the ink? How much was the cost when you picked it up?"

She rubbed at her eyes as if to wipe the tears away, scrubbing at her face to make it look redder." I don't know, he just gave me a card to use and I already gave it back!"

Keith clicked his tongue. "We're just gonna need to try to replace it, we can't afford to lose another job right now."

"We can't afford to buy this much again, either! And the carbanoid nitrodioxicide was for work, too!"

"Are you serious right now?! Ugh, maybe if one of us picks up a second job…"

"You already have two!"

"A _third_ job, then!"

"W-why don't I just give you the money for it?!" They both whipped their heads to turn back to the onion man, wide-eyed and flustered under their gaze. "I - it is my fault it exploded, I shouldn't have opened someone else's property in the first place, right?"

"Oh, no -"

"We couldn't possibly, sir, it's her own fault -"

"- we could never accept such generosity -"

"- and we can definitely take care of our problems, we don't need to bother you -"

"Especially when it's my fault you're blue in the first place, I should be the one offering you money..."

"P-please!" The alien held up his hands again, eyes darting back and forth in between the two of them as he fell backwards a step. "It's no trouble at all, just," he pulled some kind of wallet out of the pocket of his ink stained jacket, "please let me leave!"

Keith and Pidge both spoke at once, fervently trying to deny the offer with large gestures. The man's response was somewhere along the lines of throwing money at them and running away.

They stared at his retreating back for a moment, before looking down at the cards he'd handed them.

"Well, shit," Keith said after a while. "I didn't think the second part of this plan would actually work.

"Yeah, I didn't really either." Pidge agreed with drawn eyebrows. "We totally just conned that poor guy. That makes us awful people, right?."

"Awful, terrible people." They stared at the money. "We should probably like. Find him and return it or something, huh?"

"Yeah," Pidge agreed seriously. "We really should."

They used it to buy lunch instead.

To their credit buying lunch was, in fact, a large part of their information-gathering tactic for the day. They chose the most normal and nondescript diner they could identify, ordered enough food to excuse the two of them sitting there for the next several hours refilling their drinks like assholes(1), and listened.

"So why is it," Keith was asking Pidge, both of them keeping one ear open to the quiet din around them, "that we can understand everything everyone says to us on any planet, but I couldn't read this menu if I had a cipherkey?"

The bubbles Pidge had been blowing into her soda halted. "That's actually a pretty interesting question," she said, sitting up from where she'd been slumped over the tabletop. "Okay so you know that we have that connection with our lions where they're sort of in our brains? That's part of it. I haven't even come close to figuring out how this magitechnology the castle runs on works, but I know that the lions are translating any speech patterns we hear into recognizable ones" She pointed to her temple as if to demonstrate 'all in here.' "It even does the reverse, which is probably more impressive. They're constantly reading and analyzing the brainwave patterns of the speech center of the brain in everything around us including ourselves, sampling it and converting it into this sort of like.." Pidge's hands twitched and circled in the air as she fished for the right words. "...Translator matrix, so that when we speak what we THINK coming out of our mouths is our standard English but it's actually whatever the most prevalent local language is!" She paused. "Well, Allura said we all have awful accents in every language we speak, so I clearly it's not a perfect system."

Keith blinked stupidly, mind whirring as it tried to comprehend the explanation. "Okay, I think I get that. So why can't they just analyze the patterns of things we see, too?"

She shrugged. "I think it's because they can't connect the patterns they read in text with the patterns heard in speech. These things are supposed to have a full database with every language in the universe on it, but that's all ten-thousand year old data now, it's not accurate anymore." Pidge leaned back in her seat casually, taking a sip of her drink. "Same reason they'll translate Japanese but not Spanish, I imagine. English and Spanish are both romantic languages born from Latin, so the lions can't even tell they're different from each other. But when I had Shiro try some Japanese I could understand it, I guess because the origin was halfway around the globe so they have enough differences."

Keith had not actually thought Pidge would have an answer to his mostly hypothetical question, and couldn't help but be impressed. "And how much time did you spend deducing all of this, Agent Mulder?"

Her face twisted into the grimace of someone who could not be more disappointed with their life. "Only like, a day," she said morosely, as though the idea of a project that would take ten years of her life to comprehend was her greatest wish in this world.

Beside the table their waitress had come once again to loom over them with a stony glare. "Is there anything else I can get you?" The disgruntled Geruda asked with terse politeness, pouring enough water into Keith's still-full glass that a single nudge to the table would cause the careful bubble of water rising above the rim to burst and spill off the table into his lap.

"We're fine just chilling here, thanks," Pidge waved her off.

The server turned around to leave them, the motion whipping her tail out behind her to bump one of the legs of the table as she passed, and Keith slapped the palm of his hand over the top of his glass just in time to hold it down to the shaken table enough to minimize the inevitable spill. He shook the water off his hand, and cleaned up the rest with his last napkin. The glass still was still too full to safely pick up. "Are you done with that straw?"

"Sure." Pidge flicked it at him.

He was just sticking it into his water glass and dragging out a long sip when the first useful thing all week finally happened. Behind them towards the back of the restaurant two people were coming out of a soft-swinging door, one of them wheeling out an empty dolly as they talked.

"You're here earlier than usual, D'argo. I thought you always did your Concordia deliveries first?" The old Geruda woman in a manager's uniform asked.

Keith couldn't see the other speaker from where he was sitting without turning his head, so he just listened. "Yeah, I can't get in there yet until my new visa clears. Forgot to renew the damned thing before I came here now I've been putting off going down to that godawful license center like a fool."

"You still haven't been there? Honey you better get comfortable, then."

"I know, I know, I'll be here for days. But I'd have been here for days anyway, so. Can't blame a guy for procrastinating, right? I'll do it after I hit Elzar and Zaahn's places and finish today's deliveries"

"Well good luck with that sweetie. I'll be seeing you here for dinner again then, I suppose?"

"Well, I don't know where else I'd eat!" D'argo laughed, and wheeled his empty cart out of the restaurant.

Pidge and Keith were looking at each other. "What are you thinking, Agent Scully?"

"You know what I'm thinking, Mulder." Keith said, eyeing the door. They scooted their chairs out from under the table almost in unison.

Keith pulled out the cards they'd gotten from the onion man, looking at them critically. "Do we know how much money is on these?"

"Nope," Pidge said, standing up. "Do you know how much our bill was?"

"No idea."

They paused. "Leave all of them here and hope instead of shafting that poor server we gave her a really, really big tip?"

"That was my plan," Pidge agreed. Terrible, terrible people, they were. The others should stop leaving them unsupervised, honestly.

They left to begin following their quarry.

Admittedly, following the delivery man to two separate restaurants just to to find the licensing center was probably unnecessary when such a thing as 'asking for directions' existed, but that's what the two of them did anyway. It was probably just as well - otherwise they might have gone into it tomorrow looking for a normal passport, which Elpis did not provide and politely shut down like a steel trap if you asked. What they DID issue was work visas, and not just to anyone, either. When it all boiled down to it, the only way to get into Concordia was if you had something to sell.

But on the plus side? Look who'd finally figured out how to get into the city, eh? Efficient as a well-oiled motherfucker.

In the foodservice industry, in which Keith spent far more months bussing tables than he would ever have liked, a customer who takes up a table for half the night and preventing anyone from getting extra tips via turnover and clogging up the waiting list is usually referred to as "an Asshole"

"So… Do we _have_ anything we could sell?" Lance asked the table at large. The five paladins plus Allura had reconvened at a bar later that evening. The live music from the band and chatter of the patrons around them was loud enough that any of the six of them could only just barely hear each other speaking over it, so Lance had to raise his voice to add "Because I feel like we can't pose as merchants very if we have no wares."

"We really only have what's in the castle with us," Hunk said dubiously. "We only just got that greenhouse running again, it's way too early to try to sell any of the food we're growing there."

Shiro managed to sit in his chair in a way that made the other patrons in the bar all walk around him in a wide berth where they shamelessly bumped against and slid past the others. "How important is it that we actually _sell_ anything? When we can get into the city we don't need to keep posing as merchants if we can find what we're here for, right?" He looked at Allura. "How likely is it that we'll be able to talk to someone important quickly?"

"Not good," Allura just shook her head grimly. "The royal line of Sheba has always been very clandestine in their support of rebellion. Even if we miraculously managed to find out way to a senator or chancellor or duchess, there's a chance they aren't connected at all; and the ones who are will be hard pressed to tell us such." She looked out the darkened window at the far wall. "And nevermind the fact that I don't even know where the palace is anymore - this city has grown so much larger than it was in my day, I haven't the faintest clue where to even begin. I'm afraid we have to be prepared to be in Concordia for a long while."

"So um, no offense…" Lance twirled a hand in the air. "But how important is it to stay here and do this, exactly? Can we just…" He waved the hand dismissively. "Give up and leave, maybe?"

The others looked inappropriately hopeful at this, but Allura once again shot them down. "Even if it's not through the royal family, if we're going to find whatever revolution against the Galra this galaxy has been building up, Concordia is our best bet. The fact of the matter is as much as I'd like to keep other people out of this fight, we can't do it by ourselves." She looked at them all, eyes circling the table to meet each one of them in turn. "We need allies, and this is city is our best bet in finding them. There's a reason this city is practically the universal center of the black market - Concordia is City of a Centillion Secrets, past, present, and future."

There was a few moments where no one spoke, the boisterous din of the bar filling their silence.

And then Shiro said with complete seriousness, "That's a lot of fucking secrets."

"Well," Allura clapped her hands together to call attention back to her, and cheerfully added, "On the plus side, we actually do have plenty of wares to sell! Might have some trouble getting them from the castle all the way into town to sell, but we have more than enough to last us however long we need!"

The paladins all stared at her, trying to decide if they knew what she was referring to. "Ancient Altean antiques..?" Hunk hazarded.

"Yes, actually," Allura flashed him a dazzling smile. "Ten thousand year old furniture should fetch a pretty good price, if I'm not mistaken."

Which did in fact sound like a huge pain in the ass to move into the city considering where they'd parked their damned ship. What did ancient Altean furniture look like, anyway? Like, credenzas and shit? Did Keith even know what a credenza was? He realized he did not.

Lance frowned, kicking at the table a bit. "Okay, but if we're advertizing that it's ten thousand years old they'll probably check that out and figure out it's Altean. We might as well be painting a big sign on our backs saying 'Lookee here, we got us some Paladins!'" Which was a good point, if phrased in a totally weird sort of way.

"We can say we stole it," Pidge offered with no hesitation.

Hunk rubbed at his chin. "...Actually that's not bad."

"The castle did appear to have been already heavily looted when Coran and I took stock of it. It's not far out of reach to assume we're selling looted goods from when everything was still shut down." Allura said.

"The timing is a little too convenient though, isn't it?" Shiro argued reasonably. "A group of people show up with a ship we can't show anyone apparently full of Altean artifacts not even a year after Voltron has reappeared? Lance isn't wrong, it'd be a neon warning sign."

"Well that's not hard," Keith shrugged. "We can just say we stole it all recently - snuck in and looted the place while all of us were out distracted being Voltron." They left the place totally empty often enough that Keith was surprised it hadn't already happened. Well, they usually left either Allura, Coran or both behind to watch over things - today was Coran's turn to stay behind, as it were - but considering the Galra-related difficulties they've had in the past and the fact that it was only two people, Keith was sure that a person could sneak in and out without being noticed. "Maybe on Thuban 9, there was plenty of time for us to be robbed when we were there last month."

Even Shiro had to stop at that one. "...Actually... that could work. If we can be convincing… space bandits, I guess, and not show up in an obvious group of five we might be able to pass by with that."

At the words 'space bandits' Allura lit up like someone had just set a Christmas tree on fire. "We… we get to pretend to be space pirates!" She realized with the deranged glee of someone whose dreams have just come true.

"I, uh. I said bandits, actually…"

If she heard Shiro she made no sign of it. "I'm going to be so good at this, I've read all the great stories! Captain Bon Clay the Mimic Prince, Roronoa the Three Headed Razor Beast of Zou, Big Mam and her famous deadly tea parties…" She listed off like any one of them had ever heard of these people before and even knew if they had existed or were fictional. "Oh, I'm so excited, I wonder what kind of clothes we have left in the castle to dress up in!"

The paladins all exchanged weathered glances. With Allura that enthusiastic about the idea, they'd be hard pressed to talk her out of it. Looks like starting tomorrow they were going down to the license center in town and pretending to be space pirates. Or bandits. Whichever.

"Welp," Lance slammed a hand down on the table. "Now that that's all sorted, it's clear what we have to do." He flung an arm out behind him in an extravagant gesture towards the performing band. "There's a party going on around us, we've gotta join in!"

Keith huffed a short sigh out of his nose, his mouth occupied with trying to fight off a smile. Of course. Lance was hardly the type to throw away an open opportunity for a good time like this, wasn't he? They were lucky they'd gotten him to sit still and listen for as long as he had.

Lance was scanning the crowd of dancing aliens next to the band with unconcealed excitement, not even facing the table anymore as he called to them "So, who's joining me for a round on that dance floor?"

Hunk pushed out of his seat with noisy scrape of his chair. "You know I can't resist the chance to totally upstage you with my sick moves," he broke out a rather impressive pop'n lock maneuver to demonstrate. "No one ever expects the big guy to be able to _move_."

"Oh, you'd _better_ bring it," Lance grinned. "Only way you're gonna look better than me out there is if you throw down all the game you've got, my friend."

"Says the guy who dances like a cartoon character," Hunk laughed back.

Keith was watching this exchange with only mild interest, perfectly content to observe until a hand was thrust unceremoniously into his face. He looked up to find his boyfriend beaming a hopeful smile at him. "Join me?" He asked in a cobbler-sweet voice.

Keith supposed if he'd thought about he'd have known better than to be surprised. Why WOULDN'T Lance expect Keith to dance with him? They were dating, after all, who the hell _else_ was Lance supposed to expect to dance with him but Keith, right? Nonetheless, Keith was reluctant to agree. Dancing was the sort of thing that was only fun if you knew what you were doing or had the self-confidence not to care that you don't, and while Keith had no problem recognizing his strong points he knew anything involving a noisy room full of complete strangers was not gonna be in his comfort zone. "Uh," he flashed Lance one of those hesitant 'I really am quite fine thank you' smiles common to all people trying to sink into the background and blow off their friends. "I'd better not. You definitely won't be upstaging anyone if I go out there with you."

Lance didn't look put off in the least bit, smiling even wider and laughing "Like anyone actually cares. Come _oooooonnnnn_ , come dance with me. We'll look ridiculous together."

And as charming as the bastard was, he really did make it sound tempting. Keith looked back out at the writhing mass of bodies undulating on the sticky tile floor and tried to imagine himself out there with them, another faceless moving body in a sea of sweaty drunks. A full shudder racked his body. "Sorry, I'm still gonna have to pass." It was strained, but Keith was determined to hold his smile. If Lance knew something was wrong he'd _never_ go away and leave Keith alone, which was really definitely what he didn't want right now. "I don't even know how to dance, we'd just be stomping on each other's feet."

"Then we'll make sure to swing by Hunk and step on his feet, too." Oh, god. Lance's voice was hopeful and his smile was handsome and Keith really didn't want to disappoint him, but… Somehow the more Lance tried to convince him to go the worse Keith's anxiety got, until just the thought of stepping out there was enough to shorten Keith's breath in his chest.

"Lance…" Keith swallowed around the lump in his throat, kept any sign of strain from his voice as best he could. "I'd _really_ prefer to stay here. If you don't mind."

Lance gave him a considering stare, long enough to make Keith want to twitch under the attention. He didn't, keeping his back straight and managing not to break eye contact long enough for Lance to drawl out a low hum and shrug, "Suit yourself." He turned his attention to Pidge, sitting hunched low in her chair on the other end of the table with her face in an ECHO screen. "Pidge, you're up!" He declared cheerfully, not giving her the chance to say no before he was grabbing a thin wrist and yanking her out of her chair.

"Wha-? Hell no, Lance!" She was shouting as he dragged her towards the dance floor.

"I just got rejected by my OWN BOYFRIEND, Pidge! You have to use your magic Little Sister powers to comfort me in my time of grief," Lance insisted passionately, pulling her into a tango stance and marching off in grand style.

Despite her continued protests Pidge quickly ended up giggling, aforementioned Little Sister magic letting her easily adapt to the phenomenon that was a ridiculous teenage boy trying to make her laugh. Keith watched the two of them spin in extravagant loops and twirls, apparently making no effort to avoid colliding bodily with the other dancers and not minding in the least bit. In fact Pidge might be doing it on purpose. Pidge was kind of evil like that. You know, in the good way? _Fun_ evil.

When Keith tore his eyes from the two of them to search the crowd for Hunk, he found him leading Allura onto the dance floor, both of them laughing as they sashayed their hips into the crowd. Keith didn't even bother looking at where Shiro had been sitting to look for him, having watched from the corner of his eye as Shiro stood up and headed towards the bar practically the instant Lance had said the word 'party.' He was still there now, sitting with his back to the bar so he could keep a parental eye on the dance floor, liquor glass still full and no fewer than three Geruda girls flocked to his side and trying to pull him into polite conversation.

Deciding that sitting alone at a table for six was an invitation to be paid attention to if nothing else, Keith stood up and edged his way over to the side of the room to lean his back to a wall. He didn't mind the bar scene in general, but he wasn't much for this kind of boisterous atmosphere. Bars should be quieter, he felt. How were you even supposed to talk to each other over this band? It was impossible! A good bar had a set of the same regulars sitting around the scattered tables and a cheap electronic dartboard, and if you didn't want to make conversation with the stranger you're playing billiards with you didn't have to and it still counted as being friendly. This place? The exact opposite. It was an anxiety-inducing kind of bad, and Keith was about as comfortable here as a balloon in a cactus patch.

The air was thick with smoke and the smell of liquor and writhing… he wanted to say humanity but there were only like, four humans in the crowd out there and the rest were aliens so… People...ity? Peopleness? Fuck it, it was gross either way, and he couldn't breathe. Keith wanted to step outside for a breath of fresh air, wanted to leave outright and go back to the damned castle, actually, but could hardly leave without everyone else. Even just getting himself outside was practically impossible just for the simple fact that he'd have to weave his way through the crowd to get to a door, and the thought of that many strangers all outnumbering him like that was more trouble than it was worth. God, this place was a fucking deathtrap, is what it was.

The second that thought occurred to him Keith realized how easy it would be to kill someone in this room. This many people in small poorly lit space, with the perfect level of background noise to cover up any suspicious sounds? It was the perfect ideal. A person could sneak up on someone completely unnoticed, slip a shiv in their side or a wire around their neck and quietly dragging them off to the side of the room where the body would be dumped to the side, unnoticed for hours. It'd be even easier to poison someone - drinks were abundant and unguarded, and before he thought about it Keith's head was automatically swerving back to where Shiro was at the bar, relieved to see his drink still all but untouched even fifteen minutes later as his friend tried to politely extract himself from what looked like horribly awkward small talk with an ever-expanding flock of girls of a now largely diverse variety of species.

Keith looked back towards the band again, scanning the crowd in an almost desperate need to search out the others. Allura's hair caught his eyes in a flash of silver-pink under the lights, hand in hand with Pidge and so far perfectly unmurdered. He even found Hunk and Lance not too far away from them, apparently engaged in the promised dance battle. And oh my god was Keith glad he hadn't gone out there now because they looked ridiculous.

They were having fun, Keith told himself firmly. They were all having fun and enjoying themselves without worrying about how they were obviously letting their guards down because they were _fine_. They were fine and everything was fine. They had Keith and Shiro still alert and watching for trouble, and there was, above all, _no actual reason_ to suspect someone in the room was currently plotting their deaths. There was no reason to be worried. Keith told himself this again, sure he had almost managed to convince himself. There was no reason to actually worry about anything, and who was that coming near him with a drink in their hand, he swore to god if someone tried to interact with him right now they were getting a bayard in their FACE.

The stranger's eyes widened at the malignant aura Keith had sharpened into a glare, and they swerved around him to try to chat up some more receptive patron further down the wall.

Somehow the brief flare of rage had been the exact distraction he'd needed. Keith hadn't managed to calm down and relax, not by far, but he'd managed to break out of that toxic train of thought. Keith just needed to… to stay calm and keep his eyes open, and everything would be fine.

Everything was not fine.

Over the course of the probable two hours Keith had spent with his back to that wall, he had not only utterly failed to cool his head, he had actually managed to grow more tense and miserable, wound up tight as a tripwire ready to blow. Leaving the bar, the walk back to their podships, the subsequent drive back to the castle - nothing had eased the tension starching his nerves and spine. The others all gave him a wide berth, able to tell how out of sorts he was with himself and thankfully able to recognize his need for space, and when they got home Keith was left to wander the empty hallways of the castle, finally alone.

It didn't help. Being back in the castle and under barriers wasn't helping Keith feel any safer. Everything was too big and too empty with too many dark spaces, and every shadow Keith looked at he swore he saw movement in. He felt like - he felt like he wasn't alone. Like there was something or someone on this ship with them, watching and waiting and laughing as Keith pulled his hair out of his scalp trying to tell himself everything was actually okay. Every wall and ceiling panel he passed Keith wanted to pry off its screws, the fact that he didn't know how this ship was built or if there was a hollow space big enough for a person or bomb to hide driving paranoid suggestions into his brain and God, how had he ever thought of this place as _safe?_ This castle wasn't safe, it was TERRIFYING. This place was supposed to be their home; it was sadly the closest thing to a home Keith had ever _had_ and that was only because of the people that were in it and if Keith lost any of them…

Keith remembered Kerberos. Keith remembered having only one person in this life who had ever cared about him and then losing them. And Keith remembered subsequently losing all of his shit and getting kicked out of the Garrison, left to wander the desert alone and chase conspiracies because he hadn't had anything else left in the entire world because Shiro was _dead..._

His feet had automatically taken the turns Keith needed to find Shiro, walking so quickly towards the bridge the panic-fueled stride was nearly equal to a full run. He only relented when he heard the sound of Shiro's perfectly alive voice from the other side of a corner, slowing down to stop and peer quietly around the wall to see Shiro and Coran talking about tomorrow's plan for the license center. Well, that was two people who were alright, but Keith was still certain something was wrong somewhere. Allura, he realized, if Coran was here where was Allura? And Keith was set off down the dark hallways because he was suddenly sure she was in danger and the only way Keith would be able to convince himself she wasn't was if he saw her with his own eyes.

She took longer to find than Shiro did, and Keith realized with a bit of horror he had no idea what the princess did with her free time. It took a full, miserable half of an hour before he stumbled across her, and he only had by following the sound of her merrily singing to herself as she rummaged through a trunk of old costumes in a small theater stage that wouldn't have looked out of place in an elementary school gym. Keith didn't have time to be relieved to see her well, just kept right on walking past the cluttered room and tried to calculate which of the last three paladins would be easiest to get to from here.

Pidge was perpetually the easiest person on the ship to find, right at home in Green's bay tinkering with a computer in the silent company of her Lion and pet robot. Hunk he found in the newly revived greenhouse trying to figure out Altean soil pH levels, which only left Lance whom Keith no longer had any real difficulty locating at any given time.

The problem was that if he wasn't already with one of the others, he was probably in his own room. His own room with the automatic door, and since Keith couldn't see or hear through it that meant he'd have to actually like, step close enough to it for it to open instead of standing here staring at it imagining all the possible ways Lance could be dead on the other side. Or even worse, alive and _happy to see Keith_ , because he'd already wasted nearly an hour as it is and who knows what could have happened in that time he needed to get moving again and check on Shiro and the others and he couldn't do it if he was frozen here.

Keith nodded to himself. Opened the door. Confirmed Lance was in there and safe long enough to hear his boyfriend pull off his headphones with a startled "Huh?" and marched back into the hall to resume his sentry. Right, that'd do, this room was clear, time move on.

Coran was still near the bridge but Shiro wasn't, which of course wasted more time than Keith had to spend looking for him. Looking for all of them, it turned out, because Allura had moved while Keith had been hunting down Shiro in the hallway and then sneaking out of said hall before Shiro noticed him and Keith had to explain why he was stalking everybody. Pidge was still in the same place but Hunk had wandered off to the kitchen and Keith was wasting so much time wandering around the castle looking for everybody he'd never be in the right place when something bad DID happen, and why couldn't his stupid friends just hold still and stay in one big panic room where Keith could keep an eye on them?! Something was coming, something was here and lurking in the wings and Keith couldn't do anything but chase his shadow in circles and none of them were safe, nowhere in the entire _universe_ was safe, from here to Earth or anywhere as long as the Galra still existed, any moment of any day of the rest of their lives Keith and all of his friends could suddenly all be killed, wiped out so fast none of them even knew what was going on until it was all nothing but the endless black void of death and there was _nothing he could do stop it._

When he passed by Lance's door again it was still open, and Keith hurried past it only to realize he hadn't heard any sounds from within and therefore failed to confirm Lance was actually still alive. Fuck. Fuckity fuck, please don't let Lance notice him, Keith could not deal with that right now. He doubled back enough to peek his head in the door, and of course came face to face with the concerned visage of his boyfriend asking "Keith? Was that you here about an hour ago, too?"

Nope. Nope, can't deal with this, not gonna. Keith turned around and started walking away as quickly as he could without making it look like he was freaking out, berating himself and trying to figure out how to get by Lance's door unnoticed on the next pass. Lance was apparently having none of this, though, chasing him out into the hall calling "What the hell? Dude, Keith, you gotta tell me what's wrong with you."

' _What's wrong with you?'_ the words repeated in Keith's head, first in Lance's voice and then echoed in the memory of a frustrated foster mother days before he'd been shuffled back into the system and moved to a new house. What was wrong with Keith? Hadn't that always been the question, his whole life?

The sudden onslaught of despair that simple question brought hit Keith like a semi to the face; abrupt and life-shattering in a way that made his feet stop dead in the middle of their panicked flee. Which unfortunately seemed to Lance like he had stopped to wait for him to catch up, so he could reach out to grab Keith's shoulder and ask "You've been acting a little weird for a while, is something up?"

The touch was unwelcome in a way Keith had never had the displeasure of experiencing before, the harmless grip like a cold stranglehold around his throat. Keith slapped it off of him by the wrist with immoderate force, stumbling forward a couple of steps from Lance as he turned to snap out "Can't you ever just fuck off and leave me alone?!"

Both of them reacted to Keith's words with the same wide eyed surprise, Lance backing away and holding his hands in the air with a placating wave. "S-sorry, man," he still sounded like he was worried more than anything else, and Keith couldn't deal with that, could just not fucking deal with any of this clearly or that wouldn't have happened in the first place, and he turned to flee off into the halls.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, what had just happened there? How was he such a bug-fucking moron to have just let that happen? As if Lance didn't get to see enough of Keith's bad sides all the time as it was, now he was going to figure out that Keith was out of his mind, too, had managed to brilliantly show off his paranoia and violence and total inability to deal with human interaction all in one fell fucking ten-second span because Keith was _just that magnificent_ and Lance didn't deserve to have to deal with all of this, Keith didn't want to deal with his OWN bullshit he couldn't shove the burden that was Keith's entire fucking personality on Lance, too!

Keith wasn't quite running anymore but hadn't slowed down to a walk, either, striding through the hallways like a man with a mission when he in fact had no idea what he was doing or where he was going. He couldn't go back to following around the others now, the fear of being seen by one of his friends in this state now greater than the irrational terror that had been propelling him to check on them. Six counselors, doctors and psychologists over the span of six schools had all unanimously assured him the feeling that someone was out to get him was imagined, but the other fear right now, the fear that one of his friends was going to see him right now and realize what a fucking crackpot he was, was very real. Fuck. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do and he didn't know where he was going but he had just realized his teeth were sunk into the tender webbing between his thumb and forefinger and oh, shit, when had he started biting again?

The paranoia-born hyperawareness, at least, was enough to alert him when he was about to barrel face-first into someone as he rounded this next corner. Fight-or-flight reflexes activated, the first thing Keith's instincts told him when he saw Shiro was to kick him in the nuts and run. Naturally, this was not an actual real life option, which resulted in Keith standing there frozen solid and doing his level best not to move any part of his body even the slightest bit, breath halting in his throat and eyes stilled ahead, staring at Shiro's neck.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Shiro seemed to be taking assessment of him, but as Keith was still staring at his collarbone and concentrating on not breathing or twitching for reasons he could not actually explain, that was rather a guess. And then the black paladin sighed. "Come on," he said tiredly, turning around and walking back down the way he came without checking to see if Keith was following.

Keith did, if for no other reason than because he couldn't manage to think of anything else he might be able to do with his body. He shook his hand out as if the act was all he needed to make the bite marks stop hurting, a brief thought dedicated to hoping his friend couldn't see them before remembering he was still wearing his gloves, so. No he could not. At least there was that.

Still nowhere near being in his right mind, Keith didn't even consider the question of where they were actually going or why, just followed mutely and focused his efforts on not running out of here at top speed and hiding in an air vent. Even unthinking as he was, Keith still managed to be completely unsurprised when they reached the training deck. It was a good thing he didn't stop to wonder why they could be there, because he wouldn't have had the time to. Before the door was even closed behind them Shiro was turning to throw his body into a strike that Keith was only able to dodge because of the hypervigilance animating his strained guard.

The moment Shiro recovered from his momentum he swung his arm into another attack, Keith stumbling a step back in the second it took to grab his bayard for an awkward block. If he had wanted to counterattack he didn't have the chance, because Shiro had used the haphazard stance Keith had taken on to block him to grab his wrist, yanking Keith forward off his balance and then using the grip on his arm to throw him onto his back. Keith's shoulders hit the floor with a painful snap that nearly knocked the wind out of him. He twisted blindly on the floor, rolling to sit up on one knee and then snap forward into his own attack straight from there without pausing to actually stand up in between. Shiro parried it with the sickening metallic ring of his arm sliding against the steel of Keith's sword, ducking low under the blade to pile-drive a hard shoulder into Keith's solar plexus and bowling him over so effectively Keith ended up a few feet away on the floor, clawing at the tile as he choked on his own heaving coughs.

Shiro was not, in any regards, holding back right now. Well, that wasn't strictly true - Shiro was only holding back as far as not activating the white-hot plasma of his cybernetic arm and frying Keith's hand off like a hot knife through butter. Other than that small leeway, however, he was doing no one any favors, coming at Keith like one or more of them was possessed, not giving the red paladin enough space to gather any thought in his head beyond their fight. Keith didn't even notice, so perfectly absorbed in the thrill of combat as he was. Didn't notice that his mind had cleared of tortuous whispers, didn't notice that he wasn't afraid. Barely noticed the pain in his shoulders and feet and… inner torso organs, holy SHIT do not let someone hit you in the solar plexus. All that pain only registered in his brain after a few minutes of frantic blocking and dodging (and beatings), until Keith finally got his bearings enough to cool down and plan his offence.

At some point, Keith did start to notice things again. He noticed first that Shiro had started over-relying on that fancy arm and would occasionally leave his left side wide open during an attack. Then, the slightest gleam of manic desperation in Shiro's eyes, hidden under the controlled precision of his attacks. Noticed finally that that his own shortness of breath was only the familiar heave of physical exhaustion now, that somehow under the pain of his increasingly worn and battered body he was finally loose and relaxed of the tension that had been wrecking him for hours.

Both of them were slowing down, thinking more in between their attacks and putting more space between them as they grew more exhausted. Eventually Keith realized that nearly an hour of time must have passed by now, and somewhere in the process of the two of them just sort of getting tired and giving up on the fight to sit down on the floor, he decided he was probably okay now. He didn't really feel anything else _besides_ okay, either, but that was fine, too. Keith was empty, and exhausted, and completely relieved to feel that way.

The two of them sat in silence for a while, letting their breath return to normal and stretching out various newly sore limbs. "So," Shiro eventually threw out into the room in an inappropriately fatherly tone, "feel better now?"

Slowly, Keith answered in a nod. "I do, thanks." He said in a voice that sound tired and quaky to his own ears. He turned his head to look at Shiro, exhausted on the floor and staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. "How about you?" Keith knew Shiro was more stressed than the lot of his other paladins combined, and could hazard a guess as to how thrilled he was about this entire Elpis operation on whole.

"Yeah," Shiro answered in something like a beleaguered sigh. Of course, the thing Shiro himself had decided was the most stressful part of his own evening bordered on hilarious to Keith, as he complained offhandedly: "I'm just so bad at dealing with girls, Keith." Because Concordia and the Galra Empire combined did not leave Shiro half so discombobulated and weathered as being popular with teenage girls did.

Keith didn't quite laugh, instead snorting in amused surprise. "Kinda sucks that you're straight, then."

"It really does," Shiro agreed mournfully. "If I could switch teams I would."

"Then you could date Coran," Keith offered helpfully.

Shiro didn't hesitate for a second. "Don't think I wouldn't. Take that mustache for a _ride_."

With a comment like that, Keith didn't really have any choice on how he might like to respond; he burst out laughing.

When Shiro went to bed shortly after that, Keith had a pretty good idea as to what he should do right now. Which was, of course, to go apologize to Lance for stalking him and then flipping out on him.

So if course Keith found himself in Red's bay instead. It was, upon reflection, without question the closest thing Keith had to a 'safe space' in the entire universe. And it was here that he was best able to think with a clear head.

It had been a while since he'd had an unprovoked attack like that. Keith had a couple of fits like this since coming to space, but for the most part they had all been in more predictable circumstances like after the castle had turned on them and that time Keith had spent eight hours floating alone in space in his dark, comatose Lion. This one felt… A little out of the blue in comparison. He couldn't write it off as a fluke after last night's little mini attack as well, it had clearly been the buildup for tonight's Paranoia Extravaganza. He'd had times like this more sporadically and often back on Earth, when his life had been a stressful string of foster homes and schools and daycares and any other kind of place the system could think to shove a kid who doesn't belong anywhere.

Stress. His brain caught on the word, letting the concept roll around in his head. Was he stressed out? What had happened yesterday that had set him off? He'd spent the whole day distracted and frustrated and then… And then he and Lance had sex. Which at the time had felt like rather the opposite of stressful, actually, so it seemed pretty counterintuitive for THAT to have been the trigger. Of course it had been immediately afterwards that he'd freaked out, but it hadn't been because he'd been thinking about the sex itself, it was because…

It was because he'd felt lonely after the fact. It was because he had felt lonely and he hated it, hated feeling weak and helpless and irrational and all day Keith hadn't been able to focus on what they were actually supposed to be doing for barely more than a minute because everything about Elpis touched on Keith's every nerve and he'd managed to spend the entire time he and Lance were in town together being annoyed by him and Keith hated that about himself, too. Look at how quickly and easily he and Pidge had figured out what to do today: all they'd had to do was sit a table and eavesdrop for two hours and they'd gotten more than a combined six people had the entire day before!

Ever since they'd started dating just being in the same room as Lance messed up Keith's head. It made him feel nervous and vulnerable and scared, and yeah it was usually all in a good way that Keith found kind of thrilling but… But that didn't mean it actually _was_ good. Keith didn't even feel in control of his own emotions anymore. When they were together he was intoxicated by Lance's presence, giddy or nervous or horny and usually all three at once. And when they were apart Keith was STILL usually thinking about him; wondering what Lance would have to say about any random stimulus Keith came across, or remembering one of those accidentally charming things Lance was so good at waylaying Keith with, or even just wishing Lance _were_ around, usually with the idea that Keith would really like it if they were touching right now...

Lance was a _distraction_. Even if Keith was fairly certain Lance wasn't any worse for his mental health than Keith himself was, there was no denying he was distracting Keith from what was really important.

Zarkon.

The war they were still fighting, he was now certain, and the guilt about his newfound ability to completely fucking ignore it had been the root of today's…episode. Here Keith was, drafted into space on the most important mission in the entire history of the universe, and he couldn't get his head out of his ass and focus on a simple reconnaissance mission because he was too busy mooning over his boyfriend. God, Keith was such a fuck-up.

So then what was he supposed to do here, break up with Lance? Keith didn't want to do that. Well, a tiny part of him would be very relieved to do so, but that was the same part of Keith that generally liked to suggest the solution to most of life's problems involved running away to Mexico and hiding under a rock, so Keith was pretty good at ignoring it. Breaking up seemed like the correct thing to do in theory, but in reality Keith still had to spend time with him and therefore still wouldn't stop thinking about him. All it would _really_ mean is the loss of things like cuddling and sexy make-out time and replace them with loneliness and needless pining. So that sounded pretty stupid.

On the other hand: two hour paranoia-fueled panic attack. Also, space war. Hm.

Well, either way, Keith was also pretty sure of one other fact: the middle of a now undercover mission was an absolutely terrible time to break up with your boyfriend. So he could safely put this decision on hold for a while. Maybe it was even for the best that he not decide immediately.

Keith looked up from where he was sitting, leaned against one if his lion's legs, peering up at her unmoving metal face. "And you," he said whimsically, "just do not give any kind of shit what I do as long as we still get to go outside and fight things."

A hum purred through his brain that if Keith were forced to describe he might call "the satisfaction of mutual understanding." Or maybe just the words "damn straight." Either way he smiled - at least here was _one_ relationship he was pretty confident he couldn't screw up.

Speaking of which, Keith rocked himself up to his feet. He should probably go apologize to Lance. Whatever he decided later on, Keith wanted the time he and Lance _did_ have together to be as enjoyable as possible, which involved a certain amount of manning up and not acting like a bitch.

When Lance's door opened Keith was startled to find Lance already standing in front of it, apparently with the idea of leaving the room and, if Keith suspected correctly, finding him. Which, he supposed, sort of worked out in both of their favors.

"Keith!" Lance blinked, startled. "You're here! Uh, obviously. Are you, uh… feeling any better?"

Keith nodded shortly, clearing his throat a little to mumble, "Yeah, uh... yeah. Thanks." They both just stood there for a moment, not saying anything. Keith finally looked up to meet Lance's eyes, hesitantly asking, "Can I… come in?"

Lance blinked, then must have realized he was standing in the middle of the doorway and stumbled backward to give Keith room to step inside. They didn't really go much further than that, actually, rather just sort of stood around fidgeting. "I, uh…" Keith eventually started, swallowing a lump in his throat. "I'm sorry for… sort of freaking out on you earlier."

Lance coughed, shook his head. "N-no, I'm sorry for, uh. Running after you and startling you like that, I could tell something was up and should have known to just leave you alone."

Keith cringed and desperately fished around for something to say. "You were just worried," he shrugged after a few moments of fumbling.

"I still am," Lance admitted, scratching at the back of his neck. "Any chance you're gonna tell me what any of this was about?" There was a hint of desperation in his own voice, and Keith knew how helpless Lance must have felt right then.

Keith really owed him some kind of honest explanation, he knew. But the honest truth involved several years of backstory regarding Keith's psychiatric profile and other details he absolutely did not want to discuss, and he was left at rather a loss. _Some_ of the truth, he bargained, and eventually settled on saying, "I had an anxiety attack."

His boyfriend failed to look satisfied by the answer. "Yeah, I guess you did," Lance responded a little dubiously.

Was there anything else he could say other than 'I am crazy, you are dating a crazy person'? Fuck. Fuck this apology was a disaster. Keith really could not get any one thing right tonight, could he? "It's… a thing that's been known to happen from time to time," he offered weakly.

Lance gave him a long look, sighed. "Okay," he finally said, forced acceptance in his voice. "Okay, fine. As long as you feel better, I guess." He looked at Keith's face critically, reaching out with his fingertips to gently brush a lock of Keith's bangs behind his ear and away from a fresh bruise blossoming at his temple from one of the many times Keith's head cracked against the floor this evening. "I was kind of hoping you'd explain why you came back looking like you ran head first into a wood chipper, but I guess I can just assume you and Shiro beat the crap out of each other in the training room."

Oh yeah, Keith… Hadn't even thought about that. He probably looked like shit, huh? Actually, wait, how had Lance known Keith hadn't been alone? He looked up at Lance from where he'd been gazing away at the floor, question on his lips.

A question Lance apparently foresaw from the sheepish look on his face, and before Keith could open his mouth to wonder Lance was already stuttering "Er, see the thing about earlier is. So, I'm pretty used to being told to fuck off, but usually when someone does they look more annoyed than, uh… terrified?" He flailed around a little. "And I didn't know why that was and I realized I like, don't actually know that much about you or your life and that made me kind of panic. So since I didn't know what was wrong or how to handle it, I kind of… ran off to fetch Shiro in the hopes that he _would_ know what to do, which it seems like he did! Since you feel better now."

Of course running into Shiro hadn't been a coincidence - and Keith had kept out of sight well enough for Shiro not to have noticed on his own, so someone telling him he needed to go find Keith was the most logical reason for him to have ever ended up there in the first place. Lance looked like he expected Keith to find a reason be angry at this admission, contrite as a child who had just tattled on their sibling. Keith was not angry. Slightly overwhelmed, yes, but not because of any fault in what Lance did - in fact rather just the opposite.

Oh, Lance. His Lance. Always making sure Keith is taken care of, even when he couldn't be of any help himself. Even right now, still worried about Keith above all else. Keith felt his eyes sting, didn't know if he was going to cry or what but stepped forward and buried his face in Lance's neck, wrapping his arms around Lance's waist because Keith was feeling way too many things all at once and at that moment really just wanted to be held by his stupid terrible perfect boyfriend.

Lance tentatively wrapped his own arms around Keith's shoulders, and the two of them were standing there in Lance's room in an embrace just as awkward as the rest of the night had been. As much as the simple physical contact proved to be instantly soothing, Keith still felt terrible about the entire thing. At the very least he had to give Lance a better explanation than "I had an anxiety attack," but was still having trouble figuring out what the hell kind of excuse he might give. Not to mention Lance had a point about Keith's constant reluctance to share any information about himself, even now when his boyfriend was all but directly asking… There had to be _something_ Keith could tell him.

Lance didn't push anything, just stood there holding Keith and lightly stroking a hand through his hair because this was Lance and he could never resist it. Eventually, Keith managed to fish out the words he wanted, but stayed buried in Lance's collarbone to speak them. "So, you know how we all came up here already complete with our own emotional baggage? Like Allura losing her whole species to genocide, and Shiro with the PTSD, and your inferiority complex?"

"I don't have a-" Lance cut himself off. "I mean. Yes?"

Keith shifted a little on his feet, mumbled the next words with his mouth pressed against the skin of Lance's throat. "And you remember how when we were in the Garrison, the campus was in Texas?"

Now sounding downright confused, Lance agreed, "Yeah?"

"I was actually from that area, you know? Sending me to the Garrison was the state's version of shipping me off to the nearest military school. So some of my baggage includes an adolescence as a homeless gay asian orphan. In Texas."

There was a moment of silence. "That," Lance said in a strained voice, "certainly does paint a picture." After a moment, he added "Plus anxiety."

"Plus," Keith agreed, "among other problems, social anxiety, yes."

Lance rubbed at his shoulders in a manner that was probably supposed to be soothing. Keith decided that Lance must have been too distracted to take a shower earlier, because he smelled _really_ good right now - Lance had such a sexy, manly scent once he sweat off all the soaps and cheap colognes he always covered himself in. Still, neither of them managed to come up with anything useful to say, but at least the silence wasn't so loaded this time.

Eventually Lance stepped back far enough to force Keith to look him in the eyes again. "I get it, I see," he said loudly. "I know what went wrong earlier tonight." And then, with so much cheer injected into his tone there was no way it could be sincere declared, "You were just nervous because you don't know how to dance, right?"

That definitely caught Keith off guard. "Huh? Uh…. No?"

"Nonono, come on, Keith.," Lance clicked his tongue, shaking his head. "I _said_ ," he repeated meaningfully, "you were just nervous because you don't know how to dance, right?" and looked at Keith expectantly.

Baffled, Keith could think of nothing but to play along. "Uh…. yes? You got me?"

"There we go, was that so hard to admit?" Lance said with unnatural confidence. "Fortunately for you, I happen to be an amazing dancer!" A fact Keith could already protest, but didn't as Lance grabbed his hand, the one he had on Keith's back sliding down to change their embrace into a dancing stance. "And as such it would be no problem to teach you."

Keith let himself be swung in a lazy half-circle loosely resembling a spin, a small smile curving his lips. He didn't particularly want to learn to dance, and he knew Lance knew at least that much himself, but… They both deserved the opportunity to change the subject, right? "I dunno Lance, from what I saw earlier tonight I might be better off going to Hunk for this."

A mortally offended scoff. "Betrayal! Utter betrayal!" Lance cried out with his usual excessive drama. "Rejecting me twice in the same night; you're so cold, Keith. You know rats can die from loneliness!"

Keith couldn't have kept the smile from his mouth if he'd tried. "You know you just called yourself a rat, right?"

"Every word out of your mouth is a vicious attack upon my person." Lance took a step backwards towards his bed, taking Keith with him in fumbled parody of a dance step. "Now shut up and dance with me," he said decisively, groping behind him on the bed to grab his phone.

Keith had pretty much already decided to indulge him, waiting in a patient half a dancing pose while Lance fiddled with his phone long enough for it to start playing music. Not even a note had played before Lance was balking at the screen, uttering "Er, but apparently this will not be a very LONG dance lesson because I totally forgot to give my phone to Pidge to charge and the battery is about to die."

"That definitely works for me," was Keith's response, and in only a moment Lance was shrugging and tossing the phone over his shoulder onto the bed so he could pull Keith into what seemed to be some kind of tango stance.

"Okay," Lance said firmly, directing Keith's hand to rest on his waist. "So I know a little bit about a bunch of different styles of dancing, but honestly never actually got good at any of them. But I got pretty good at figuring out the basics and faking it," he started explaining, pausing to count down along to the song's beat for three seconds and starting the dance with a long step to the side when he reached 'one,' slow enough for Keith to follow without stumbling. "And I started out by learning tango. Well, pretend tango, because me and Gwen were like, eight when we started? Maybe younger, I just have memories of being a little kid and practicing dance moves we copied from movies with my sister." The song was cheerful and lively, the beat running faster than the careful steps Lance was guiding him in. "Here, feel my hand on your shoulder blade here? I'm gonna be like, using my hands to guide you and show you where we're gonna step, you just have to relax and follow my lead."

Lance was using the hand he had linked with Keith's in the air to pull Keith with every step, the hand spread out on Keith's back just under his arm acting as a steady anchor to guide Keith's body as they moved. It did indeed make following the steps Lance was taking easy and surprisingly unclumsy, but at the same time it gave Keith an intimate understanding of the differences between leading and following in dancing, because he had no control of how or where they moved across the small room. Oddly enough though, it wasn't the unpleasant sort of loss of control. It felt more like… Being swept off his feet, maybe?

"Alright, now stop looking at our feet and look up at me," Lance's voice was colored warm with amusement, and when Keith looked up meet his eyes Lance was smiling. "You actually got the hang of that way faster than I thought you would. I keep forgetting you're like, supernaturally graceful or whatever." Which was bullshit because Keith was about as naturally graceful as a ground vole on meth, but Lance was a bit of a flatterer, wasn't he? "So now that you've got the hang of this, we can move on to the fun stuff."

Keith tried not to sound dubious. "Fun stuff?"

Lance flickered his eyebrows and grinned, "Dips and twirls!"

"That sounds like a terrible idea."

"Considering how small this room is you might actually be right," Lance agreed brightly, nonetheless aiming their steps to the largest open space. He took the hand that they had linked in the air and brought it up to his own shoulder, leaving Keith's hand behind to rest just by Lance's neck. His own hand went to Keith's lower back, and he directed "Now, put your weight on one leg and sort of bend at the knee a little."

Lance leaned forward and twisted them to the side, the hand on Keith's lower back an anchor bearing nearly all his weight as Keith's back curved and his foot slid out from under him. It was a strange sensation - the world slipping out from under Keith's feet and rushing past his head, all the while staring Lance straight in the eyes as he allowed himself to be carried completely, too unsteady on his one bent knee to trust it to hold him up without Lance's hands steadying him. And then Lance was turning back, standing them both upright again and moving back into their easy dance steps, all so fast Keith barely had time to register more than the blood rush to his head.

"Holy shit," Keith said softly, several steps after he was already upright again. "I really thought you were gonna drop me for a second."

"Why is everything you say mean?"

Keith's lips twitched with the shadow of a smile, looking into Lance's eyes. "No, I mean. You didn't, though."

Lance raised an eyebrow, but returned with a smile of his own - one of those charming smiles that only happened when Lance had no idea how suave he was being. "Well, what do ya say? Trust me enough to give it another try?"

The question made Keith's palms sweaty and sent his heart beat to double-time, loaded for all it's apparent innocuousness. Did he trust Lance? With his life, certainly. With his body, pretty much completely. With everything else… Well. Keith swallowed thickly, nodding a little. "Yeah. Yeah, let's give it another go."

Lance blinked a little, suddenly turning awkward like he had realized the accidental weight of Keith's answer. He coughed a little, sputtering "R-right, naturally." He continued leading them in aimless little circles for a bit, getting the rhythm back into their steps before he moved Keith's hand to his shoulder again and Keith knew to bend his knee as Lance tipped him backwards again in a smooth, playful swing that bowed Keith's back so low he was sure his hair must be brushing against the floor. And then Lance pulled him back up again and stepped them both into a dramatic spin, a giggle bubbling out of Keith's throat as he landed back against Lance's chest.

Lance was beaming at him, cheeks split open from his grin and red with warmth. "And the twirls don't really need any explanation, mostly because we never actually figured out how to do it the right way in the first place." He took Keith's hand again and raised it above their heads, using the hand on Keith's waist to push just lightly enough for him to get the idea and spin his body under their joined arms. Which, when they were facing each other again, just resulted in their linked arms being turned awkwardly upside down in the air, and before Keith could let go to change his grip Lance was ducking under their joined hands in a twirl of his own to right the twist in their elbows.

"I don't think that's how those are supposed to work," Keith smiled wryly.

Lance answered with absolute confidence. "I know for a fact it's not but I think I proved it works just fine," he winked at Keith. "Okay now you dip me, then I'll twirl you one more time?"

Keith snorted, nodding in assent as they flipped their stance so that Keith was now leading. "If I drop you at least we know you'll deserve it," was his version of a warning before leaning them down to dip Lance, who flailed a leg dramatically in the air behind Keith at the bottom of the swing. As soon as he was upright again Lance was twisting their linked arms so Keith had no choice but to twirl under them. But at the end of this one Lance just pulled him into a second short spin that landed Keith startled with his back to Lance's chest with their linked hands settled on his own breast.

Lance's other hand made itself comfortable on Keith's waist, low towards his hip. "And basically we'd do a lot of that," his voice was a warm breath against Keith's ear as he tried to subtly bury his nose in Keith's hair. His voice dropped low, deep and breathy in an almost-whisper that sent shivers down Keith's spine with each word. "But by then I'd realized that chicks totally dig a guy who can dance, so I started trying to figure out how to use that," Keith rolled his eyes. Lance rolled his hips, holding Keith's body against his with that hand so that they moved together. "...And picked up the type of dancing you do at parties and clubs. I feel like this style has a name but I can't think of what it is."

He kept moving them like that, gently rolling their hips together in a slow rhythm not dissimilar to the beat of the song Lance's phone was playing, an oddly sensual dance to meet such a happy tune harmonizing about falling in love with love. "Is it 'dry-humping?'" Keith asked, unable to resist any opportunity for dry humor.

It didn't even give Lance a moment's pause. "You know, I think it might actually be that." They both laughed a bit, and Keith liked the way he could feel both of their bodies shaking from it with the way they were pressed close together like this. He could definitely see the appeal in all this, all warm in Lance's hold and moving together to music, but it seemed to him like the last kind of dancing he'd ever do out in public with a complete stranger. To each their own, he supposed.

He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that before the song was ending, changing to a more appropriately sexy latin-pop beat. Which was why it sort of threw Keith when the next thing to happen was Lance throwing out the cheerful non-sequitur, "And that's about when my little sister Morgan took up ballet."

Keith blinked in surprise. "You know ballet?"

"I know how to do exactly one thing," Lance countered, and placed his hands into a firm grip around Keith's waist. "Straighten your back," he commanded lightly and Keith obeyed without thinking, tensing his spine just as Lance was delightfully declaring, "Lifts!"

With horror, Keith cried out in warning "You'd _better_ not -" but it was too late. Lance was heaving him in the air right there and Keith was suddenly, startlingly two feet off the ground. Impassioned hisses of violence fell from Keith's lips as Lance laughed, setting him back on the ground and spinning Keith to face him again before he could regain his balance. "I hate you so much," Keith muttered, but nonetheless accepted it easily when Lance pulled their bodies close, looping his arms in a low hold around Keith.

"That's to be expected at this point," Lance offered no trace of shame. "By the way, did you know you're heavier than a nine year old girl? Because I could get Morgan all the way above my head more than once. Tossed her around all day, swing-dance style."

At the words 'swing-dance,' Keith tried to take an instinctive step back in an attempt to break out of Lance's arms and flee into the night. Lance laughed, pulling Keith back to his chest. "I'm just teasing, I don't know anything about swing dancing. All I've got left is normal boring prom stuff; I'm done torturing you, I promise." He ran his hand over the length of Keith's spine in the soothing strokes of someone who only just gotten their stepmom's angry maine coon to sit still long enough to be pet for the first time in its life. Despite himself, Keith couldn't deny the small pleasant shivers the touch elicited, melting a little against his boyfriend. "Just relax and dance with me a while. Please?"

It was the one thing Lance had been asking of him the entire night, and Keith really couldn't find in himself to deny the request any longer. He looped his arms up around Lance's neck in the spirit of playing along, and they started a lazy shuffle, carelessly carving the same small circles into the floor. "So, what's the difference between this and the first kind you showed me?"

"It's less effort, and I get to put my hands on your ass," Lance answered with a cheeky grin, dropping his grip a few inches down from Keith's lower back to playfully grope at his butt.

Keith's laugh didn't go as far as leaving his mouth, just shaking his body a little as he leaned his head down to bury his smile in Lance's conveniently-located collarbone. It wasn't hard to relax into the dance, enjoying it for the excuse to hold your lover close and sway slightly that it was. He let the barely-audible spanish of the song's lyrics wash through his ears without trying to comprehend them, the part of his brain that actually knew a bit of the language only leaving the words " _with you"_ to echo uselessly in their wake like a slowly blooming ink stain. The warmth from Lance's body was spreading to Keith's, heating him up from the outside in and baking a hot blossom of contentment to swell in his chest until he was warm and safe and happy; a Keith-shaped baked potato of muted bliss. No, meltier than a potato. Like a cake, he decided. Keith felt like a cake.

And that's about when the battery on Lance's phone died, cutting off the music abruptly mid word. Ah. Keith slowly came to a stop, figuring that was pretty much the end of that, when Lance was pulling him back into movement again, refusing to miss a beat as he just picked up singing where the music had dropped off, in a low and quiet voice that Keith could hear something just a bit like desperation in as he sang, "... _Que iron_ _ía del destino no poder tocarte. Abrazarte y sentir la magia de tu olor..._ "

Whoever had written this song, Keith immediately decided, had made an incalculable mistake when they put these lyrics to a pop-dance beat. He had barely noticed the words so drowned out were they by their background music; but here like this, being whispered into his hair by Lance's voice like honey-nut roasted sex right in his ear… If Keith had felt gooey before this now he was downright molten, a hot liquid puddle of chocolate flowing easily in Lance's hold. Oh, this son of a bitch. Unfair, cheating son of a bitch, pulling whatever underhanded methods he had to to get his own boyfriend to dance with him. How did he keep doing this to Keith, overwhelming him and making him feel so many things at once until he felt like he was going to explode from it all. How had this even happened? An hour ago he'd been having a panic attack and fifteen minutes ago he'd worked himself into a depression and yet somehow here Keith was, warmed and valued and thoroughly, utterly seduced as he tried to press himself as close to Lance's body as he could possibly manage.

Lance was singing slowly, drawing the song out long and low and even Keith's mediocre comprehension of the language was enough for him to know exactly what was being said, so earnest was the skill in which Lance sang to him. " _Yo quiero estar contigo,"_ I want to be with you, " _vivir contigo,"_ live with you, " _bailar contigo,"_ dance with you.

Keith's heart was pounding, and his arms had wound tight around Lance's shoulders to help keep him steady on his buttery knees and his thoughts had been reduced to something along the lines of ' _Lance, Lance, Lance..._ ' and he was just so pathetically _gone_ for this boy. He wanted to do something for Lance, to show him how grateful Keith was just for being here and caring about him and making him feel like this, wanted to find some way to do for Lance what he was doing to Keith and make him feel this ridiculous liquid-candy good as he did right now.

' _You should suck his dick,'_ a voice in Keith's pants helpfully suggested.

' _Don't ruin the moment,'_ he thought back to his libido sharply. This was a romantic moment, god damn it. It was a lovely dance; not everything had to automatically lead to sex just because they were eighteen and couldn't keep their hands put of each other's pants.

His rapidly-increasing horniness reminded him that cocksucking was plenty romantic, otherwise why would they call that shit 'making love?' And how on Earth was it supposed to ruin the moment, anyway? What was Lance gonna do, shove him off and cry out 'Oh you pervert, why would you sully this beautiful dance by trying to put your mouth on my penis?' Yeah, right.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly of all, his nethers reminded him, Keith seemed to be actively _arguing_ for an excuse to suck his boyfriend's dick. That by itself was obviously the best reason to do it - when asked why you just sucked that cock the only correct response was invariably 'because I fucking wanted to,' which Keith obviously had covered.

Well shit. Did that mean this was happening? He was really doing this? He must be, because just the idea of pushing Lance onto the bed and dropping to his knees was making him all kinds of hot. Oh man, he was _definitely_ gonna do this. Keith hid his devious grin in the collar of Lance's shirt, delightedly reveling in the thought that Keith was going to absolutely fucking _destroy_ this gorgeous bastard and he still had no idea.

He let a pleased sigh ebb from his chest and sunk comfortably into Lance, stretching one arm out lazily behind Lance's shoulder while the other curled around his neck to play with the curly hairs on his nape. The moment Keith had decided on how this night would end his heartbeat had started to speed, his whole body washing over with excitement just from the anticipation of what was to come. For now he swam contentedly through their slow dance, basking in the shivers that cascaded down his spine with every word of the love song being serenaded into his ear.

Lance was dragging out the song slow and sweet, letting each note linger in his mouth before moving on to speak the next. Trying to keep Keith in his arms as long as he could because he knew Keith would pull away as soon as he was done, but didn't know to look forward to when Keith did just that. Keith liked that, made him feel impish and mischievous in that sexy way that could only result from a plan so delicious he was already turning himself on just from the idea of it. But he thought he'd like to clue Lance in even more with a hint of what was to come, leaning his head up at first just enough to rest a kiss against the sensitive skin just under Lance's earlobe. He was gifted with the slightest bit of reaction, a hitch in breath in between lyrics and Keith rewarded himself for that victory with the pleasure of running the tip of his tongue in a teasing stripe down just as much of the length of Lance's neck as he could reach without moving to crane his head. That caused a full stutter from Lance, extra noticeable in the fact that the word he stuttered on was just a drawn-out vocalization of the sound 'Oh.' Lance's hands tightened around his waist, fingers curling harshly into the black fabric of Keith's shirt until the material bunched under his fingers enough that he was touching the bare skin of Keith's lower back, and his fingers felt searing-hot perfect there. They'd feel even better if they slipped down under the seal of his jeans to touch underneath there instead, but even though Keith had lost his boots in the hallways trying to avoid being heard by Shiro and his jacket in the greenhouse looking for Hunk he'd managed to never take his damned belt off for the very important fact that it's what his bayard and knife were attached to. Well. They'd fix that in a few minutes, he resolved, and sucked Lance's earlobe into his mouth.

Either the song was over or Lance had just given up on it, because he was gritting out, "Jesus _christ_ , Keith," and tearing him off of his ear to pull Keith into a fierce kiss, wasting no time with his usual gentility to suck and lick and bite into Keith's mouth with a ravenous hunger that Keith loudly echoed. Lance had to practically pry Keith off him to break their kiss, and he only pulled away at all because Lance had managed to yank Keith's shirt up to his armpits in the effort to remove it and Keith agreed that being as naked as possible was important right now. Between the two of them they got it off him and onto the floor, but Lance tried to draw him back into another kiss Keith was placing a still-gloved hand to his chest, letting a coquettish grin curl his lips as he walked forward three paces to lead Lance to his own bed.

Lance's eyes were wide and blown-out with arousal, looking straight into Keith's as he was led backwards so he didn't notice when the back of his knees hit the mattress. He fell to sit without looking away from Keith, watching almost dumbly as Keith leaned down to press one last gentle kiss against his lips, pulling away to stand in front of Lance with the sweetest smile he could conjure. And then, very deliberately, dropped to his knees.

"Hooooly shit," Lance cursed softly.

Keith ran his hands up and down the insides of Lance's thighs slowly, making himself comfortable for what he intended to be a good while sitting on the floor and dropped his voice into something low and breathy to gently command, "You should take your shirt off, too."

Lance tried to nod but the gesture was cut short by him tearing the shirt from his body as fast as possible, and that little rush of power once again thrilled through Keith. He let his eyes drop from Lance's to rest forward towards the seam of his jeans and quickly discovered this was not the limits of how strong and sexy he could feel as he watched the crotch of Lance's pants slowly tent just from Keith sitting between his legs and teasingly stroking his thighs over his pants.

He leaned forward to press his mouth against the straining seam of Lance's jeans, grinning against the fabric at the gasp the move elicited. "Oh my god, this - this is a thing you're doing?!"

Not sure if that was a question or a statement, Keith just raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to put his mouth around the hard outline of Lance's dick. Lance audibly groaned, the hand on the bed next to Keith's head raising in the air to flail around uselessly like it was reaching for something. "S-so, uh, not to seem like I'm at all discouraging this thing you are about to do in any way, but um." He swallowed lump in his throat nervously. "You DID have some kind of panic attack for a lot of the night and I kinda just wanna make sure you're not still feeling… uh. Fucked up, or whatever?"

Keith hummed a little before he pulled back to answer. "Yeah," he agreed with a contented sigh, figuring if he had to stop what he was doing it was a good time to at least unbuckle his belt and undo the button on his own tight jeans. "And you're right that usually after something like that I feel hollowed out and shaky for the rest of the night. I definitely felt like that earlier." He watched Lance's eyes follow the movement of Keith deliberately unbuckling his own belt and then, just because he could, stopped to sink a shallow bite into the meat of Lance's thigh. Lance hissed, that hand moving in the air again like he wanted to grab Keith's head but didn't dare, and Keith spat the dry taste of fabric out of his mouth before continuing. "But then I came here to see you. And now instead, I feel safe," Keith reached out to stroke the conspicuous bulge calling for his attention under Lance's pants, "and content," he flicked at Lance's button, a bit tempted but not nearly ambitious enough to try to undo it with his teeth quite this early, "and more than a little bit turned on." Keith didn't look away from Lance's face as he talked, didn't look away as he inched the zipper slowly down.

Lance shuddered under his hands, squeaking out a creaky "Just thought I'd check," while Keith pulled open the fly of his pants and reached inside. "Since, you know, I wanna be able to, uh." He choked back another whine as Keith curled his hand around the stiff shape of Lance's prick through his confining boxers. "...Enjoy this completely without anyone feeling weird about anything."

Keith had to pause to bury his face against Lance's thigh long enough to smother a laugh. This guy really didn't ever shut up, did he? Keith was already having so much fun. He snaked inside the slit in the front of Lance's boxers, letting his fingers lightly tease the sensitive skin, dancing fingertips over the length of him before finally drawing Lance out of his shorts. And okay, um. Wow, geeze. There was, uh, this thing about perspective that meant, uh… From this angle, right next to it… Jesus christ this thing looked _huge._ Keith was going to be able to fit far less of it in his mouth than he had hoped.

Now that he actually had a dick in front of his face, Keith was suddenly just as nervous as he was excited. And just sort of sitting there staring dumbly at it was only starting to make him feel awkward as well, which meant he had to do something pretty much right now before things really _did_ get weird. He wrapped his hand around it. Lance swore. Keith instantly felt more confident.

He moved his hand a bit, a few light strokes to get used to the feel of bare skin and the weight of Lance's cock - thought for a second about taking his gloves off before remembering there might be teeth marks that still hadn't faded and shrugged it off to lean forward and press a tentative kiss to the underside of his boyfriend's dick. Lance reacted immediately and without shame, whimpering a little as the muscles in his abdomen visibly twitched. Okay, yeah, this was already kind of awesome, Keith decided and let his eyes flutter closed. He began to place a few more brief kisses down the length of his shaft before licking a stripe back to the top, holding the base of Lance's cock with one hand to keep it steady while Keith explored its taste and texture and shape. It tasted of course, mostly just the same as any other skin tasted. Something about it was dark and musky too, though, and Keith imagined it tasted a bit like how Lance smelled and as such found he rather enjoyed it. So he figured he'd just keep going with this doing-whatever-he-wanted idea and started licking his way up and down Lance's cock, because he liked the taste and he liked the smell and he liked the way Lance shivered and hissed under his tongue. He swirled the tip of his tongue around Lance's head for a moment before opening his mouth to slip it between his lips, and Keith thanked god Lance's moan was so loud because it meant he hadn't been able to hear Keith's.

Okay, so he'd had an idea that he might want to do this since about two days after he figured out he was gay, but Keith had not realized how much he would he would actually _enjoy_ it. Just the feeling of Lance filling up his mouth, thick and huge and defined against his tongue was so satisfying, and when he started to play with Lance's cock in whatever way happened to come to mind his boyfriend instantly reacted. When Keith rolled and wriggled his tongue Lance's breath hitched. When he sucked in a breath through his nose and bent down to see how much of the hard cock he could fit into his mouth, Lance swore and trembled. When he pulled off to mouth his way down the length of hardness that couldn't fit inside of him, sucking lightly for a second or two each time before moving to a different spot to do it again Lance whimpered and finally landed his hand on the top of Keith's head.

That, too, felt oddly satisfying, Keith decided, and found he was not opposed to the idea of his hair being pulled. Lance did no such thing, just left the weight of his hand on Keith's head as he had his way with him, and Keith decided he was having far too much fun to be disappointed.

And it really _was_ fun. Enough so that he totally forgot about the idea of using his hands, until the thought occurred to him in passing when he made a second attempt at seeing how much of Lance's dick he could fit down his throat before he gagged. He waited until he was certain he could only fit about half of it in before he was forced to pull back - actually nah, he was gonna try again real quick, Keith was sure he could fit more down his throat and even the sensation of gagging on dick was oddly arousing as long as he pulled back right away. The same result, and Keith finally remembered to stroke his hand down the length he couldn't cram inside his throat as he started to bob his head shallowly. The head of Lance's dick rubbed against the roof of his mouth, and Lance's fingers curled in hair, biting out a breathy "Fuck, Kitten, that feels so good."

Oh. Oh, shit, that was hot. Keith felt his body flush with renewed heat - he'd been so distracted by trying to make Lance come undone he'd totally forgotten how turned on he was himself until that tiny bit of praise shot right from the palm of Lance's hand on his head down Keith's spine and straight to his dick, and fuuuuck, when had he gotten this _hard_? Thank god he'd had the foresight to unzip his stupid pants before this.

Keith did it again, twisting his head down so that the top of Lance's cock was sliding against the ridged roof of his mouth with every movement as Keith continued slipping his dick in and out of his mouth. And then realized he'd gotten distracted and stopped moving his hand again, and when he picked back up the motions of his wrist Lance hummed and sighed "Yeah, Sweetness, just like that," and Keith instantly choked himself by trying to get as much of Lance's cock down his throat as he could possibly manage until his eyes stung from the effort. When he pulled off to catch his breath both of them were shaking, and Keith looked up to find Lance staring down at him with the blown-out awestruck face of a man being totally wrecked. Keith grinned, smiling against the spit-slick skin of Lance's cock as he moved his fingers out of the way to lick at the base again.

"Oh my god, Keith, you're gonna freaking kill me," Lance groaned, and when Keith gradually licked and teased his way back up to the tip he was greeted by the tart flavor of precome beading against his tongue. A small, needy sound escaped his throat. It wasn't the taste itself that had Keith trembling - musky and bitter, the highest compliment he had was that it wasn't unpleasant. No, it was something less tangible than that; it was the fact that it was _Lance's come_. It was the fact that Keith was between Lance's thighs with his mouth stuffed full of hard cock and Lance was panting and rambling and going to come because of HIM. Because of something he was _having fun doing_ , and God, Keith felt that same rush of tangled contrasting feelings he was starting to realize sex with Lance would just always stir in him, that sexy-powerful-wrecked-and-defenseless tide that left him shaking and sucking Lance's dick back into his mouth to chase the taste and feel of this person who could destroy Keith so completely.

The hand Lance had rested on his head started to stroke through Keith's hair, and when Keith hummed in pleasure at the sensation Lance let another string of nonsensical praise fall from his mouth. Somewhere in the middle of swirling his tongue around the well defined shape Lance's head inside his mouth Keith remembered that part of sucking dick generally involved, you know, _actually sucking on dick_ , and opened his eyes again because if he hadn't remembered that himself then Lance DEFINITELY hadn't and he wanted to see the look on his boyfriend's face when he started. Like, _needed_ to see, even - Lance had this beautiful way of reacting to every single thing Keith was doing and yeah, you know what? He totally wanted to see the look on Lance's face when he made him come. That was a thing he needed to happen.

Gently at first, sure not to use too much force and wear his jaw out faster than he could bring Lance over the edge, Keith began to suck. Lance's face collapsed into a curse and his hips bucked to rock more of his cock into Keith's mouth. And God, when Keith was sucking down like this it made Lance feel that much bigger in his mouth so when he pushed more of his cock inside he really _did_ moan because fuck, did he love the way he felt so _full._ And Lance moaned too, which just made Keith suck even harder, sucked Lance against the roof of his mouth which left enough room for his tongue to wriggle and roll against the underside.

"Oh fuck me, jesus christ Keith, Honey, you're so good your mouth feels so good, look so pretty taking my cock," Lance's mouth was running pretty much non-stop at this point, and the taste of precome was getting stronger, sticky and heady and heavy against Keith's tongue. He pulled back so that only the head was in his mouth again, chasing that taste by sucking down with as much pressure as he could force his mouth to manage. The fingers threading through Keith's hair were finally pulling, and suddenly Keith's face was being yanked up by the bangs with just the slightest jerk, just enough to force his head up so Lance could get a better look at Keith's face as he slowly ducked his head down to suck more and more of Lance's cock into his mouth.

Jaw tightening into soreness, Keith let up on the pressure of his mouth, sucking a few more hard pulses around the hardness before he intended to pull off, maybe start over and go back to licking for a while. Intended to, anyway, until Lance hissed out the words, "Shit, I'm gonna come, Keith baby you're gonna make me come," and Keith could hardly resist that temptation, now could he?

The idea of making Lance spill was enough motivation for Keith to ignore the light twinge in his jaw, sucking Lance's dick back into his mouth with renewed enthusiasm. Lance made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a sob, and Keith wanted to glance up to enjoy the desperate fucked-out look on Lance's face but he had just realized that as much as he may desire to do so, he did not yet possess the coordination necessary to do everything he wanted to do to Lance's dick all at once and would need to actually concentrate on what he was doing. He tried to suck harshly and bob his head at the same time, but when he remembered that he wasn't moving his hand the brief distraction was enough for Keith to accidentally drop his head too far and barely avoided biting down. He slowed down, tried to just suck at Lance's head while he stroked the rest of the shaft with his hand, but when Lance's hips once again jerked and shoved more of his cock into Keith's mouth he forgot to keep sucking in favor of trying to instinctively draw more into his mouth, and the whole thing was pretty much a mess from there. He was so hungry and horny and desperate and could feel every bit of how Lance was all the same things too, twitching and leaking against his tongue and Keith just couldn't keep his head straight enough to even think of what he was trying to do anymore. The pain in his jaw was less a deterrent than it was a reminder of how stuffed full he was right now and Keith just abandoned any ideas other than to gorge himself on cock, putting one steadying hand on Lance's hip to hold him down while Keith slurped as much of his dick down his throat as he could. He drew back only just at the point before he was going to start choking, holding Lance's dick there at the threshold of his gag reflex for as long as it took to take a deep breath in through his nose - oh _fuck,_ the way Lance smelled right now was so intense it made Keith dizzy - before he started to suck again, so determined and so forceful he managed to make his own teeth hurt.

He looked up just in time to watch Lance's eyes slam shut and his mouth open in a gasp, prying one eyelid back open to look at Keith as he warned, "Fuck, I'm serious, Keith, I'm about to come, you gotta…" and gave a half-hearted push at his head to say 'it's really time to stop now.'

Keith met his look with a raise of his eyebrow to communicate 'that's the fucking idea, stupid,' and Lance's eyes went wide as he lamely shouted "In your mouth?!"

Figuring that was a question that did not need to be answered, Keith ignored it to let his eyes fall half-closed in an attempt to look more slutty. He tightened his grip with the hand still wrapped firmly around the base of Lance's cock, tugging a bit downward with that hand while he drew his head back to slowly draw his cock out of Keith's mouth, not letting up on the suction for the entire long pull. Lance was shaking and cursing under the hand pinning him to the bed, and when Keith eased up on the pressure of his hand and sucked Lance's dick back into his mouth Keith was greeted with startled confusion with the feeling that there was a lot more in his mouth than there should be right now, and it was wet and it tasted like - _oh_. Oh, Lance was coming. _Awesome_.

There was a split second in which Keith recognized that there was currently a lot occupying his mouth and he really needed to do something about it. Before he could even think to make the decision Keith was swallowing, throat working open only to realize his mouth was already full again with another flood of warmth. He gulped down another hard swallow, and then once more to clear out anything still left floating around his mouth as he finally let Lance's cock fall away, one thin string of come trialing long and sticky from the tip of his cock back to Keith's swollen lips, breaking off to spill down his chin after a second.

Lance whimpered, loudly proclaimed "Holy _**FUCK,**_ " and immediately fell backwards onto the bed, chest heaving. "Oh my… holy shit, dude," he panted. "Jesus quiznak you just fucking killed me. I can't believe you _swallowed_."

Keith wiped at his chin, watching smugly as his boyfriend slowly stopped shaking as he came down from his high. Keith's jaw ached terribly but somehow it was impossible to find the sensation unpleasant, possibly having to do with the way Keith's tongue was still unconsciously rolling against the bottom of his mouth like it was still trying to feel the weight of Lance's dick, aching for it's sudden emptiness. "I'm glad," he hummed, "by try not to stay dead too long, because I still kinda want you to get me off, too."

Lance pumped a fist in the air. "Yessssssss," the arm he had raised wobbled slightly in the air before dropping back to the bed with a muffled thump. "In just a second." Keith counted to ten. Lance gave one last long shuddering sigh and declared "Okay, let's blow your mind," springing back up into a sitting position again with an eager grin. Which for some reason fell from his face when he looked at Keith, turning bright red with oddly-timed embarrassment as he gestured to his mouth and muttered "Uh, you still got a little…"

"Thanks," Keith beamed, and wiped the last of Lance's come from the corner of his lips. Lance made a sound like a turkey being asphyxiated to death and tackled him to the floor, sucking Keith's mouth into a dirty, messy kiss.

Keith shuddered himself now, body so wound up that the skin-on-skin contact of having Lance pressed against him again was torturously hot, and he couldn't help but spread his legs enough to make room to drive his hips upwards against Lance's, desperate with the need for friction. Lance chuckled a little against his mouth, half because he had already come himself and was back in his right mind and half because he was a giant bastard.

Lance's hands planted on Keith's hips, fingers curling inside the opened waist of his pants to try to yank them downwards, breaking the kiss to murmur "Lift up your hips; I need to get you naked." His mouth landed somewhere on Keith's jaw, biting and licking at it for a moment before he continued almost to himself "We've had sex twice and I still haven't gotten you completely naked, that's so ridiculous."

Keith shimmied his hips to help Lance pull his jeans and underwear down. "No, we've had sex one and a half times, unless you forgot you still have work to do here."

Lance laughed against the skin of his throat, sitting back up so he could peel the regrettably tight fabric from Keith's legs. He tossed them aside, and the still-crazy part of Keith's brain told him the sound of his belt clattering against the floor meant it was out of reach to grab a weapon should they suddenly find themselves under attack, but fortunately Lance was grabbing Keith's naked legs and settling between them and just the feeling of being touched again was enough for him to decide they'd be quite alright just the same. Lance bent down to lick a long stripe down the length of Keith's abdomen, starting from sternum to trail down until Lance was plunging his wet tongue into the dip of Keith's belly button. Which, really, why the hell was that even hot? It tickled more than it actually felt good but for some reason Keith was yelping and clutching at Lance's shoulder, a shiver running down the length of his spine.

Lance's tongue swirled around Keith's belly button for a moment before he was continuing his trail downward, mouthing his way down to Keith's pubic hair until his lips were so close to Keith's cock he could feel the hot dampness of Lance's breath whispering against the sensitive skin with every exhale. He trembled a little with anticipation, waiting with uneven breaths for Lance to finally touch him… And waiting... And waiting. "Lance?" he asked, less aroused and more trepidatious with every passing second of inactivity.

"Uhhhmmmm," Lance's voice was strangled and pathetically hesitant, and Keith's head hit the floor with a disappointed thump. "Just a second here, it's just uh. You know from way up close like this, your dick looks like, WAY bigger, and uh… Just need a second here."

Keith wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. Firmly reminded himself he'd needed a minute, too. Drew in a patient breath. Please make up your mind soon you useless fucking straight boy, because Keith's ass was getting colder by the second laying on the floor like this. "Take your time," he said evenly, unable to keep a bit of frost from his voice.

Lance made another noise that sounded like it was supposed to be a scoff but ended in a strained whine at the end and… Uh, the word Keith was gonna use here is 'attacked.' He attacked Keith's dick, sucking way too ambitious an amount into his mouth that scraped his teeth hard against Keith's skin and choked Lance's dumb self at the same time. Both of them jerked away from each other, Keith swearing loudly "Fucking hell, _teeth,"_ and Lance coughing, and Keith was officially more frustrated than turned on now.

"I'm sorry," Lance managed between light coughs, "I can do this, I swear."

Keith's palm slapped against his face, and he sighed into it. "Look, if you don't want to suck me off we can -"

"No!" Lance said quickly, scurrying back to press placating kisses to the inside of Keith's thigh. "You just gave me a blowjob I'm gonna be waking up hard from dreaming about for the next ten years, there's no way I can half-ass this. I can't let you one-up me, man."

"'One-up you?'" Keith quoted with a frown. He'd say he was still getting less horny, but each of the kisses on his thighs was a hot spark reigniting him like a stove left on simmer. "I feel like you don't understand how badly I wanted to suck your dick, Lance. Having to force yourself is kind of creepy."

"If the one thing I really really really wanna do is get you off right now I don't see how it could possibly count as forcing anything," Lance argued reasonably. "Now shut up and watch me amaze you." And this time, thank the lord, started off slower by licking a few careful, kitten-like laps at Keith's aching cock. Which, obviously was still not going to get him off yet, but at least they were on the right track now, right?

Lance apparently had steeled himself enough to make another real attempt, grabbing the base of Keith's dick to aim it into his open mouth and ohhhh, that felt _nice._ Warm and hot and wet and Lance immediately started flickering his tongue against the head of Keith's cock and he definitely moaned, spine twisting into a small arc as one of Keith's hands buried itself in thick chestnut hair. Yeah, okay, Lance seemed like he had a fine handle on this after all and Keith could probably relax into a nice mess now.

This thought and Lance both betrayed him with another hard slip of teeth, and Keith used the hand in Lance's hair to automatically yank him off his dick before it was bitten off. "Jesus damn it!"

"Sorry," Lance muttered, shaking his head a bit pausing to let his face open into a cringe that wouldn't look out of place on something in the process of coughing up a furball. Very encouraging, just the look of distaste one wanted the person sucking their dick to wear. "Okay, I think I'm getting the hang of this," he promised, and dove back in like a Navy Seal into water.

The thing was, Keith decided quickly, as long as Lance kept doing whatever it is he was doing with his tongue then no matter how badly he managed to fail at the rest of the blow job - a truly impressive amount, by the way, since he seemed to be forgetting to do anything BUT use his tongue at the moment - Keith would still be able to come pretty soon just from the skill of that action alone. Also because he was so fucking hard he could pole-vault with the damned thing the way it was now.

His shoulders were shaking and Keith let a thin moan spill from his lips, finally able to feel the first swell of his advent orgasm. Which of course, _of course_ , was about the time Lance made another terrible surprised-disgusted noise and pulled off of Keith. He sat up just in time to watch his boyfriend rubbing his tongue against the back of his hand like he'd just fucked up a tequila shot. "I'm sorry, I really thought I had that but the taste was suddenly like, like how a glue stick smells or something and..." He cut himself off with a huff of breath through his nose, looking back down at Keith's leaking dick. "Quiznak, you - you're really getting wet, huh? That's kinda hot." His face involuntarily scrunched up again, recalling "Except for the taste -"

Keith sighed and sat up to slap a sweat-damp hand against Lance's mouth. "Lance, I appreciate that you _want_ to do this, but can we maybe practice some other time and just fucking put your hand on my dick? You're - you're very special but I was ready to come like, ten minutes ago."

Lance's face fell, crestfallen as a man being told to give up on his dreams. And now Keith was horny, frustrated, and felt like he'd kicked a puppy while he was at it. "But - Okay, look, I have an idea that'll make this easier for me, but it's gonna sound uh… Probably... perverted?" he threw out.

Tired, Keith shrugged and waved his hand in a go ahead. Lance swallowed thickly.

"R-right, so, could you maybe, uh… Like. Squeeze my head with your thighs?" Keith apparently let his bemusement show on his face, because an embarrassed Lance was shifting to lay forward on the ground more, grabbing Keith's legs and placing them over his shoulders to frame Lance's red face between his thighs.

Keith's eyes widened as he understood what his boyfriend was trying to get out of this, and not sure if it was an accusation shouted, "Y-you mean like if you were eating me out?!"

He watched something hot and familiar flash through Lance's eyes and they darted down from Keith's face, down past his hard cock and to his exposed -

Keith shivered, hard. Lance looked back at his face, once again bashful. "Uh. Yes?"

And then because by this point Keith's brain had all but just shut down entirely, he blurted tactlessly, "Do you want to eat my ass out?!"

The question made Lance, for some ungodly reason, look hopeful and hungry. "Can I - am I allowed?"

Which, what the fuck? Lance couldn't suck a cock because the taste was too strong but he was willing to ram his tongue in Keith's ass?! How did his brain even WORK? Keith's jaw dropped open for him to gape for a moment, before he helplessly agreed, "Help yourself," because what was he going to do here, say _no_? Besides; Lance couldn't be any worse at it than he was at cocksucking, right?

That voracious gleam was back in Lance's eyes, which fell back down to stare at Keith's ass while his boyfriend unconsciously licked his grinning lips. His hands were still on Keith's thighs and he moved them again, not so much slipping them from his shoulders as much as just pushing them forward against Keith's chest until he was bent nearly in half. Keith's heart was pounding loudly in his chest again, nervous and embarrassed and Lance was about to touch a place Keith rarely ever had opportunity to touch himself, and he was leaning in and Keith was saying "W-wait!"

Lance looked up at him, eyes silently begging for Keith not to take this away from him. Keith, who hadn't actually meant to speak, swallowed nervously and stammered, "There's a bed less than two feet from us, why are we both lying on the floor?"

Lance blinked, mouth opening. "Ah. Yeah, that's not a bad point, actually." And then instead of like, letting Keith get up himself or giving any kind of real indication he was about to do this, Lance grabbed Keith by the hips. He used the grip to haul Keith up to his feet, just so that he could turn him around push at the top of Keith's back to tell him he should bend over the side of the bed - the perfect mix of manhandling and suggestion. Which, hadn't actually been what Keith had been aiming for bed-wise but fair enough this was probably the easiest way to go about this. Keith didn't spread himself out over the bed, though, just braced his palms against it and spread his legs a little to pop up his hips invitingly. It was less embarrassing if he couldn't see Lance right now anyway, right?

Despite Keith's very clear opinions on the matter Lance saw fit to take his sweet time, starting off with wide hands groping and kneading the flesh of Keith's ass. And don't get Keith wrong, it felt good its own sexy-teasing way, but his balls were about to fujckign shrivel up here and he really just wanted to get this show on the _road_ already. "Lance," he said in what was supposed to be a warning voice but was starting to just sound pathetic instead, and as far as he could tell Lance's response was to bury his face in between Keith's asscheeks. Keith yelped at the sudden wetness of an eager tongue licking a flat line down his crack, and Keith needed a moment to re-steady the lock of his elbows. And when he'd regained his balance Lance was already distracted with a new surprise for Keith by letting go of one handful of Keith's bottom so he could sink his teeth into it. Fucking god damned tease, next time Keith was getting his first and it could be Lance shaking and aching-hard with need.

Lance was already back to licking by the time Keith could get a curse out of his mouth, this time starting low at the perineum and dragging up before circling a teasing ring around Keith's waiting entrance, already fluttering with anticipation. When Lance's tongue finally pushes against the sealed muscle just hard enough not to breach inside Keith let a moan slip from his throat, open and needy as his legs start to tremble.

Another soft lick, and then Lance's lips were sealing around Keith's hole and sucking and Keith's moan turned into a sob, fingers and toes curling at once. "W-what the fuck, Lance," he babbled. "You can't suck dick for shit but -" his sentence garbled into a thin whine as the suction broke off and Lance resumed his playful licking, "- but this, this you have no problem with, I don't even get you…"

Lance stopped laving at Keith long enough to answer in an earthy rasp, "Then you don't have an understanding of how much I wanna be inside you." And then Keith was gasping as he did just that, the tip of that wicked tongue breaching its way inside him with a wet wiggle.

Oh, this wasn't gonna take long. Keith's breathing had turned into a hard pant, and he reminded himself that if he tried touch his dick right now he'd fall over. Fuck fuck fuck, this already felt too good, just the barely-there squirm of Lance's tongue flickering in and out of the twitching rim of his entrance and Keith couldn't stop the noises falling from his mouth. Too sensitive, he was too sensitive here - Keith was so used to masturbating as seldom as possible, and he saved this kind of play for when he really needed to finish himself off in a hurry so this was... Lance's tongue squirming it's way deeper into Keith's ass, licking him open and tasting Keith from the inside was just... " _Oh, fuck_ ," Keith sobbed, head hanging low as a pathetic stream of pleas and curses poured out of him, desperate for that little bit of _something_ that would push him over the edge. "Fuck, _Lance_ …"

Lance sighed, long and low and happy, and Keith could tell from the pleased moan that definitely hadn't come from himself that Lance was getting everything he'd hoped for and more from this. He flicked and rolled and trilled his tongue in ways Keith couldn't even comprehend, and the last rational part of his mind had the jealous realization that of course Lance was good at THIS considering where his past experience lied. Fortunately the thought didn't have time to stick, because one of the skills his boyfriend had invented was to start sucking on the rim of Keith's asshole as he worked that magnificent tongue of his and Keith's mind didn't have room for anything beyond the chase of his re-impending crescendo.

He wasn't aware when his voice begged out "Please, please, close, I'm _so close,_ " mostly because his shaking elbows had given out their hold and Keith had to catch himself on his forearms to not land face-first into the bed to bite at Lance's bedsheets. The longer his torment continued the more Keith realized that no matter how amazing this was it just wasn't quite _enough,_ not deep enough or hard enough or thick enough, the wet wriggle simply not possessing the length necessary to reach Keith's prostate no matter how deep Lance fucked his tongue in. Keith's hips were working back now, fucking himself onto Lance's face in a desperate attempt to get _harder-deeper-more,_ reaching for that last little touch of absolutely anything that would send him over the edge. The last strength in his arms wobbled out and Keith faceplanted in the bed, body jerking downward as he fell against the mattress, Lance following without missing a beat. Keith's throbbing cock rubbed against the soft bedspread and his eyes shot open, and Keith struggled to raise his jellified body just enough to shove his left hand between himself and the bed. His fingers wrapped around his wet cock and Lance's tongue pressed down hard to give the rim of his asshole the slightest stretch and finally, _finally,_ that was it. Everything was wet and everything was white and searing-hot and Keith was coming, a scream torn out of his throat so thunderously loud it echoed in his own ears and body shuddering around Lance's still-moving tongue.

Lance moaned again nearly just as loud, not that Keith could really hear it with his brain exploding the way it was. Keith was all but dead to the world for a few seconds after his orgasm; after being so crazy wound up for so long the release felt draining: a steel torsion spring uncoiled and melted limply into a toy slinky on Lance's bed. Except that Lance was still licking at him, gently now but still too much for Keith's oversensitized body and he shook as one last quiet whine was torn from his chest. Keith blindly reached behind himself to shove Lance's head away, sighing in relief and exhaustion even as Lance pressed a series of insistent kisses on his tailbone.

"Damn, Kitty-Baby," Lance's voice was husky and wrecked, and he rubbed a loving cheek against Keith's backside. "That was so hot, if you hadn't left me such a fucked-out mess I'd be so hard right now."

Keith's eyebrows twisted together, face apparently still capable of heating up into another blush even with his own tone rather horrified and incredulous. "' _Kitty-Baby?'_ "

Lance paused. "I think I was trying to say 'Keith-Baby' but my brain's kind of mush right now." Which Keith could definitely relate to.

Keith finally rolled himself over, just enough strength returned to his quivering limbs to sit halfway upright. He and Lance looked at each other for a moment, both of them smiling goofily and for some reason blushing again, and when Lance broke out into a laugh Keith joined him.

Lance had his hands propped on the bed much the way Keith had been a few minutes before, so he only had to crawl forward a couple of paces to reach Keith for a kiss. Which was a lovely sentiment but Keith found himself catching Lance's face by the cheeks just as his breath hit Keith's nose and he yelped out "Think of where your _mouth_ just was, man!"

Lance blinked, face squished ridiculously between Keith's fingers, all the more silly for the cartoonishly put-upon expression it fell into. "Whaaat? But I kissed YOU after you blew me!"

"Well for one thing, no one asked you to do that -" Lance reeled back dramatically, throwing the back of his hand against his forehead to cry about betrayal again, "- and for another, YOU'RE the one who's always going on about hygiene, the least you can do is brush your teeth first!"

"Fiiine," Lance sighed, standing up in a fluid motion that was all long legs and spine, only to lean down at the waist to plant a kiss on the top of Keith's head. "You'd better still be exactly this naked when I get back."

Keith smiled a little to himself as he watched Lance's retreating back, pushing himself all the way up off his elbows to finally sit upright again. And finally noticed he was still wearing his gloves, now wet with sweat and spit and sticky with his own jizz and even Keith wasn't a gross enough person to ignore that kind of bullshit. He started to pull his right glove off by the wrist, but his heart slammed against his ribcage and the glove snapped back in place when Keith got a glimpse of what was underneath.

Fuck. Fuck, he'd forgotten that his teeth marks might still be there. They should have worn off by now, faded to white and then invisible with the hours that had passed, but apparently he'd managed to break the skin even through the leather of his glove because there was still an angry red ring next to his thumb. Keith told himself it didn't matter, that it was fine if he just took off his glove. Even on the odd chance Lance saw it - which, with the bruises and scrapes still littering the rest of Keith's skin wasn't all that likely, right? - even if Lance _did_ see he would probably know better than to ask questions, would be able to tell that Keith did it himself because Lance was already starting to get clued in what Keith's was _really_ like…

What Keith was really like, which was _still fucking crazy_. And suddenly Keith was every kind of exhausted. His body felt ten thousand pounds and his head ten times that, and every bump and scrape from Shiro were suddenly all aching where they'd been once so easy to ignore. He really wanted to sink into Lance's bed right about now, preferably with its owner within reach for Keith to wrap himself around and pass out into unconsciousness. But even more than that want, right now Keith _needed_ to be able to keep this one thing private. After everything else today the thought of Lance of all people seeing those bites, the blatant evidence that Keith was susceptible to something as pathetic as self-harm and looking at him with pity in his eyes… He couldn't stand it. Couldn't do it, not after how wonderful everything had just been and Keith was ruining it again without even doing anything, just by being himself…

The next room over the sound of Lance's humming to himself had become garbled with toothpaste, and whatever Keith was going to do it had to be now. Just ignore everything and lie down? If his wet gloves were annoying him this much there was no way Lance wouldn't notice and insist he take them off. So then, take the gloves off now and gamble on Lance not looking at his hands before they fade? Yes, because the odds of his boyfriend not trying to hold his hand again tonight were really that low. Fuck. Fucking fuck.

When Lance came back into his room Keith was up and wrangling his pants back on, and the sigh that poured out of Lance at this point was just defeated. "Seriously?" he asked flatly. "I'm gone two minutes and you try to sneak out like you've got a wedding ring hidden in your purse?"

Keith made the decision to not look at his face right now, instead grabbing his shirt and yanking it over his shoulders. Since he hadn't had time to come up with an excuse and he didn't want to lie to Lance, he thought for a moment before he tried in a quiet, sandy voice, "Yeah, I… Guess I'm not feeling as…" Good? Normal? _Sane?_ Keith's shoulders dropped low once he got his shirt back on, weighed down by the irons of his own insecurities. "...much better… as I thought I did," Keith finished lamely, turning his body away from Lance and towards the door.

Lance made another low tired sound that perfectly conveyed his disappointment. "Right. Yeah, I get it," he said, and without even looking Keith could tell when Lance hung his head and scratched at the back of his neck. "I guess I was just hoping… for the best, or something."

If Keith could have shriveled in on himself like a rotting flower that's exactly what would have happened. "Sorry," he bit out.

"Don't apologize," Lance said in a tone that could almost be a scold, and the sound of the footsteps coming towards Keith were firm and even. When Lance reached him he just stood behind Keith, hands coming to lightly rest high on the biceps of Keith's tense arms and gently rubbing soothing fingers down the line from his shoulder to elbow and back. "I'm never gonna get mad at you for needing space."

Despite Lance's reassurances, the air felt thick and heavy between them, and Keith wasn't sure what to do knowing he couldn't walk out when the silence continued to congeal around them like this. Eons passed and Lance heaved out another long sigh, fingers curling into the black fabric of Keith's sleeves as his forehead bowed down to rest against the top of Keiths spine. "I just…" his voice was soft and fractured, grainy like saltwater that stung each one of Keith's wounds. "I feel like the harder I try to hold on to you, the faster you slip through my fingers, you know?"

Keith choked on nothing, nails biting into his abused hands as he fought back the sting of his eyes and forced his breathing to stop shaking his chest. It took the long wet crawl of an eternity for either of them to move again, and when Keith did it was just to reach across the stretch of his own chest to rest the fingers of one hand on top of Lance's.

He didn't want tonight to end like this. He'd been so close to a good ending to a shitty night before he'd gone and fucked it up, and Keith had even managed to wreck most of Lance's night while he was at it and he just… Didn't deserve that. Neither of them did, no matter how messed up Keith was. And even… Even if later on it turned out the best thing really was for them to break up, that didn't mean tonight had to be anything less than as goddamned beautiful as Keith had felt ten minutes ago. Reminded himself that he wanted Lance to feel beautiful again, too.

Keith took a deep breath in through his nose, holding it for ten seconds like his counselor had instructed. Let it out through his mouth, long and slow to let the tension in his shoulders drain out with the air. And when he spun around to face Lance again, managed to surprise them both by how genuine his smile was. "Pretty morose thought for a guy whose every story ends with me swooning into his arms," he tried to joke, and it took a few long moments of Lance gaping at him before his boyfriend finally chuckled. Keith leaned up to kiss Lance, trying to convey through a medium as impalpable as the gentle pressure of lips and tongues that he, and they, and everything would all be okay. He must have done alright because when he pulled away the lightness had returned to Lance's eyes as his gaze followed after Keith's smile. "I'll see you in the morning, Lance," he promised.

And then, half for good measure and half just for fun, used the palm of his soaking wet left glove to give Lance's cheek two firm, loving pats on the cheek.

"OH MY GOD, is that jizz?! Did you just slap your jizz onto my face?!"

Keith burst out laughing and scrambled out of the door before Lance could grab him, calling out a cheerful "Goodnight," over his shoulder.

In the end, it took Keith giving up and pulling out Lance's still-unreturned jacket to slip under his head as a pillow, but he managed to have a good night sleep himself.

* * *

(1) In the foodservice industry, in which Keith spent far more months bussing tables than he would ever have liked, a customer who takes up a table for half the night and preventing anyone from getting extra tips via turnover and clogging up the waiting list is usually referred to as "an Asshole"


	3. The Ugly

"I do not understand you," Lance muttered sleepily, not opening his eyes as he nosed his way further into Keith's hair.

Keith just hummed in response, shifting in Lance's arms to press their bodies even closer together to further soak in the shared body heat like a cat in a sunbeam. It seemed like Lance had gone right to bed after the teethbrushing, because he'd never put his shirt back on or showered and still had the faint faded scent of sweat and sex lingering on his skin like a manly, dirty perfume. Keith inhaled a deep and purposeful lungful of air through his nose, holding it in for a few moments before letting it slowly deflate out of him.

Directly into Keith's tangled hair, Lance mumbled out in bemusement, "M'serious, how long have you been here?"

Keith's brain absently fished for an answer, slowed by the cottony drag of his own tiredness. "Maybe an hour?" His chest contracted with something that might have been a yawn or a sigh or both, remembering walking into Lance's room to try to wake him up only to change his mind when he saw how inviting Lance's bed looked with his boyfriend lying on his back to leave a perfect Keith-shaped space on his left side. "Was already morning, anyway." Lance's naked chest had a light splatter of hair across the breastbone, which Keith happily rubbed his cheek against. Oh benevolent goddess of the harvest, may you bless this land with bountiful forests for me to smush my face into. Grant me a future with beard burn on my thighs.

The heavy embrace of sleep lulled Keith into barely hearing Lance's words. "You know what would have been even easier than sneaking into my room at ass o'clock in the morning? Not running off after sex and just sleeping here in the first place."

Why was Lance still talking when Keith was still trying to be asleep? Keith hummed, and it might have sounded annoyed if he had been awake enough to comprehend emotions. "Sure would have. Have to try it sometime."

Lance's chest rose and fell in a long sigh underneath Keith's head, and the hand on Keith's shoulder began absently rubbing the bare skin of Keith's arm. The gentle touch left light shivers behind in their wake, and that combined with the rhythmic rise and fall of Lance's breathing below him lulled Keith back into blissful doze. It was broken by a question from Lance, who was apparently awake and determined to drag Keith kicking and screaming into the morning with him. "Hey, Keith?" he asked softly, enough so that had he waited another minute or two to speak the words Keith might not have heard them through his doze.

Keith took a moment to answer. "Hm?"

"Back a couple months ago when I first asked out for that first, uh… date. Why did you say yes?"

Keith's eyebrows furrowed together. Hadn't he already answered this? He was sure he had just talked about this like, yesterday or something. "Surprised me," he said around a yawn that turned into a frown when it closed.

This again? Wasn't Keith allowed to be done being embarrassed about being so presumptuous yet? What else had he been supposed to think with Lance suddenly flipping from hostile to charming like a switch. It had been a perfectly natural assumption that it was because Lance was trying to flirt with him considering it was LANCE and hitting on people was what he did.

A dissatisfied hum rumbled from Lance's throat and his grip around Keith's shoulder tightened into a hold. "I surprised you?" Keith didn't notice the displeased note in Lance's voice, occupied by being pulled back into wakefulness by a memory from a day or two later when Lance had been talking to Keith and stopped mid-sentence with the observation that Keith's eyes were actually more violet than grey up close and that they were really pretty, and how that comment had dispelled the doubts Keith had developed after their first date ended with Lance ruffling his hair, because Keith maintained that was still a really weird fucking thing to say to someone you weren't actually trying to date.

Ah crap, he was pretty much awake now, Keith realized with distaste. That meant he had no excuses not to get up anymore, and Keith reluctantly started stretching and shifting out of Lance's hold. Lance's grip around his shoulder tightened and he whined out a thin "What are you doing, you aren't allowed to leave. "

Keith wiggled out of his grasp to push himself up onto his arms, rearranging until he was sitting upright on top of Lance's stomach. "We probably missed breakfast," he leaned down to kiss the furrowed line of Lance's brow. "If we don't get up soon they'll have to send someone to fetch us for morning training and we won't get to eat at all."

Lance's hands landed on his hips and he craned his neck up to kiss at Keith's jaw. "Hunk would never let me starve," he tried to pull Keith down on top of him to reach his lips again, and against his better judgement Keith allowed himself to be pulled into a slow languid kiss, reasoning that if they were already late a few more minutes wouldn't kill anyone.

A few more minutes would embarrass them, though, because having no sense of what time it was to begin with meant they could very easily lose track of how long they stayed in bed kissing and lazily pawing at each other, and had Keith ever mentioned that he tended to get a little bit swept up in the moment when Lance kissed him? It was scarily easy to let the world fall away around them when Lance was teasing Keith's lips with his own. So you know. Pidge kinda surprised the crap out of them when she knocked on the door.

"KEITH! I thought you said you were going to wake him up, not fuck him!"

Lance wheezed out a breath of punched air when Keith sat back too quickly on his stomach to shout back at Pidge through the closed door, "I'm not fucking him, we just did some of that last night!"

Lance and Pidge both made strangled noises, and Keith grinned as he rolled out of bed.

They didn't go without food, but that was probably because Lance had a tendency to throw up towards the end of training if he was too exhausted and no one wanted him to pass out from low blood sugar because he'd puked up all the food in his stomach. Again. But it didn't even turn out to be one of the mornings where anyone threw up anyway, so all in all Keith called it a good time.

Now that the usual morning routine had been cleared out of the way everyone was gathered together in the small theater Allura had been in last night. They were getting ready to head into town to get visas, and logically, seeing as they couldn't very well go into Concordia as paladins it made no sense to try to get **into** Concordia as paladins. As such it was time to make up their new identities, so trunks and boxes of clothes and props were strewn patiently around the floor as they all waited for Allura to reappear.

When she did, she made an entrance. Silver-blue curtains flashed and sparkled as she tossed them behind her, emerging from the gap between them and tossing a jewel-encrusted laser rifle over her shoulder. She was dressed to the nines in what could only be full space pirate regalia, from her polished knee-high boots to her heavy gold-lined shortcoat, all the way up the wide-brimmed hat that looked like it had been stolen either from a victorian duchess or Captain Hook himself. So impressive was the sight she cast no one was even annoyed when Lance wolf-whistled, feeling it was for once well deserved.

Allura grinned cockily, hefting her sword to point and Shiro and declare "My first mate!" Shiro looked appropriately honored, and she turned down the line to direct the sword at Pidge, Hunk, Lance, and Keith in turn and declare at each one "My hacker! My boatswain, my rifleman, and my raider!" Finally, she reached Coran, to whom she took off her hat with a flourish. "And of course, my navigator and helmsman, to whom we all owe our lives."

He twirled his moustache and preened. "You'd hardly be able to get anywhere without me, of course," and Allura dipped an elegant and respectful bow to him.

Allura looked back over the assembled crowd with a confident swagger. "Starting today, we embark on a most dangerous mission."

"...To sell furniture?" Hunk asked with a bemused frown.

Allura didn't let the question break her dramatic momentum. "To infiltrate the seedy underbelly of one of the universe's most prosperous cities, and to join - or failing that begin ourselves - a revolution!"

The paladins looked among themselves. Hesitantly, Lance offered "Yay?"

Allura tossed her hair and put her hand to her hip, apparently content to pretend that counted as a rousing chorus of applause. "The coming weeks will require your absolute dedication to discretion. Concordia is not a safe place for a paladin of Voltron to wander around blind in, and every one of us must diligently maintain our guard." Pacing across the stage, she continued "I do not trust the fact that we've spent two days on this planet and heard not one word spoken of the Galra. Something is amiss, and I will not have us fall into some kind of trap. Which means the roles we make for ourselves in this crew we have to totally commit to, without question." She stopped pacing to face her crew again, and her face light up into a brilliant grin as she declared "So make sure whatever costume you pick it's one you absolutely love!"

Allura's enthusiasm made it nearly impossible for the paladins to even try and take this seriously. She had thrown herself completely into her role as pirate captain, and Keith found even he couldn't help but be infected by her cheer. As such the next half hour or so of all of them toddling around a kiddie theater trying on clothes was lighter than they'd been as a group all month, reveling in their last chances to take time out to have fun and trying to make each other laugh by trying on the silliest costume choices they could find.

It didn't help that even when they tried to dress seriously, it was impossible to maintain any kind of coordination. No matter what anyone tried on the seven of them always ended up a mismatched mess, looking more like the confused attendees of a comicon than a pirate crew of any kind.

Keith himself was totally lost on what to wear, trying to remember what sorts of things the aliens he'd met over the past months had been wearing. It didn't help, too various the array of cultures they'd visited, and he gave up on the idea of blending in in favor of maybe finding something that actually fit him.

The others seemed to be having better luck, settling in to clothing choices and finalizing their disguises. Near one trunk Allura had taken to the contemplation of Shiro's conspicuously memorable appearance, trying to find ways to cover up the scar and shock of bleached out hair with a series of rejected hats and helmets. Pidge offered her own idea in the matter, taking a roll of bandages and sort of tossing it loosely around his face like a ill-dressed mummy. Was she trying to do that, or could she just not see anything behind those giant goggles she'd dug up that had been taking up half her face since the moment she'd found them?

Keith pulled a dark red tunic over his head and down to fit, just about deciding that it was good enough as long as he could be done with this. It was comfortable, he'd be able to move in it, and it had a collar that was tall and loose enough that Keith would be able to duck down and hide his face in it. It didn't happen to have anything as useful as sleeves, and Keith hated the thought of leaving that much bare skin exposed in a strange city, but he could probably dig out a jacket of some kind to fix that.

Not like Lance's chosen coat though, Keith thought to himself incredulously when he saw his boyfriend swish towards him. "There's no way you're going to be able to fight wearing that thing."

Lance's answer was to flap the tails of his trenchcoat like a cape. "Won't have to. I'm the rifleman, remember? No one's even gonna get close enough to come near me, 'cause I'm so fast on the draw I'll snipe 'em out before they even see me coming." He finished off by loudly miming the firing of a rifle.

Keith raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him before turning back to rummage around the trunk he was looking through. "We're gonna get into some kind of chase and that thing's gonna get caught on something and you'll die tangled up in your own stupidity."

From not far away, Hunk shrugged, "I dunno, they can't be THAT impractical. I mean, Nazis wore trench coats and they were some pretty efficient sons of bitches."

"Nazis?" Lance looked down at his coat with a dubious frown. "Fuck you guys, I love this coat and I'm not letting any of you ruin it for me." He turned back to Keith, who had found a pair of long gloves that went all the way up past his elbows to mostly cover his arms. He'd have to cut the fingers off, but it was better to settle on this than be stuck here trying to coordinate his freaking outfit like a… a different kind of homosexual man than he was, or something, who cares at this point let's go already. " ANYWAY," Lance segwayed with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Speaking of my perfect taste and awesome outfit, where's that bandana/handkerchief thing you got?"

Keith blinked at Lance, a little surprised he'd be asking for such a thing. He pulled it out of the pocket of his discarded jacket, offering with a little dubiousness "I was thinking of using it to cover my head with."

Oddly enough, Lance's eyes sparkled a bit at that sentence, and he grinned "Oh don't worry, I've got something for your hair." He took the bandana from Keith and tied it over his own hair mostly for the sake of getting it out of his hands, while Keith watched Lance's sudden excitement with a bit of suspense. Lance reached behind himself with the apparent intent to grab something from his back pocket, but hesitated before pulling it out to show Keith, face flushing a bit and eyes averting in an adorable display of unusual shyness, stalling with "Uhhhh, but come to think of it if you don't like it or feel the urge to get mad at me when you see it then I have the defense that when I saw it yesterday with Allura and said 'Oh my God wouldn't this be so perfect for Keith?' she said 'Oh my God yeah you should buy it for him,' so half of the blame for this goes to her. Especially since she loaned me the money."

Well THAT certainly instilled confidence in Keith. He might have asked but Lance was already whipping out his present to present to Keith, who was startled to find himself face to face with what appeared to be a red plastic headband. "Eh?"

Apparently content with Keith's confused reaction, Lance grinned again. Waggled his eyebrows with a flourish and flicked his wrist, at which point the headband snapped out of its curve into a solid line and the tiny teeth lengthened and sharpened into saw-like serrations. It was not just a headband, it was a headband that turned into a fucking knife, an invention only the Geruda would possibly entertain much less mass-market. Keith kind of loved it.

Carefully, he reached out to take it from Lance, who showed him the place to put his thumb that would turn the comb on and off. A bit shy himself but knowing Lance would be absolutely thrilled by the request, Keith handed it back to ask, "Put it in for me?"

Lance got even more embarrassed by the question than Keith himself had been, turning even redder as he carefully slid the headband into Keith's hair to pull his bangs back. The gentle slide of the plastic teeth against his scalp and sent shivers down Keith's spine and Lance's hands lingered to toy with the ends of his hair for a moment before retreating. And then the two of them were both just sort of standing there, inches apart and staring each other in the eye. Hesitantly, Lance stuttered out around a blush the words, "C-can I kiss you?"

Keith's skin grew even hotter in answer. "Why are you suddenly asking? "

Lance shook his head. "I don't know, you just make me nervous." They both burst into a set of matching quiet chuckles, still not quite able to meet eye to eye. Keith raised himself up to his toes and tilted his head back, meeting Lance halfway in a kiss that both of them were smiling into by the end.

Somewhere behind them Pidge made a sound like she was barfing, and when Allura turned to see what she was making noises at she chirped out, "Oh that's just perfect!" And when they pulled away from the kiss to step away from each other she had already strutted over to steal the bandana off of Lance's head. She danced her way back over to Shiro, who had pulled Pidge's bandages down from his face to rest in a scarf-like pool around his neck. Allura sashayed back over and snapped the cloth in her hand for a touch of dramatic flair, grinning to herself as she tied the folded bandana around half of Shiro's head in a makeshift eyepatch, successfully managing to cover it the entirety of the white lock in his hair after a small amount of tucking and finagling to stuff it under the fabric. "Ta-dah!"

An offended chirp trilled from Lance's throat, and the words "Yeah, but - that was - I was gonna! "

Keith raised an eyebrow at him. "Why does it matter? We can just find you a hat or something."

Lance flailed. "That's not the point! The point is that now instead of me, Shiro is the one wearing something of yours for a whole mission!"

Keith felt himself flush again, eyes automatically darting upwards as if to somehow look at the headband currently occupying his hair. "O-oh," he said a little dumbly, waylaid again. He never was able to tell when Lance was about to say something stupid and weird or something stupid romantic. "Uh, if that's all you wanted," and as he picked up his recently discarded gloves there was only a moment where the voice inside himself insisted he needed to keep those to hide behind if he accidentally started biting again. "You could wear these? Since I've got a different pair on right now, I mean. Than, than my normal ones."

Lance's eyes widened, and he snatched the gloves from Keith's palm like he was afraid he'd change his mind and take them back. He slid them onto his own hands with something approaching reverence, adjusting the straps to fit around his own wrists and holding his hands in the air to admire them. Wearing an absolutely enamoured grin, Lance turned back to Keith to ask "So, how do they look on me? I'm totally cool now, right?"

Actually the fingerless gloves combined with the trenchcoat kind of left a street hobo impression, but Keith figured that wasn't what Lance wanted to hear. "You're very handsome," Keith said instead, meeting Lance back in reaching distance. "But I feel like you've managed to miss out on the 'in-disguise' part of this somewhere," he ran his hands through Lance's hair, dragging the short bangs backward to try to slick his hair out of his face. It was too short and too fluffy to hold like that, and Keith found himself mumbling "Hold on, I have an idea," to wander over to steal the hair gel Allura had been using to try to tame Shiro's hair into hiding.

By the time he got back Lance had started digging around in the trunk Keith had just been looking through, pulling out a wire-rimmed pair of glasses and turning around to call out "Hey, Pidge, you think you could do something cool like turn these things into a sniper scope, or night vision or something?"

"Sure, that's tinker-toys compared to what I'm planning on doing to these babies," the girl confirmed, snapping the strap of her oversized goggles meaningfully.

By the time everyone had picked their outfits and backstories and the crew was ready to head down to the visa office, they had almost managed to match themselves into a coherent pirate crew. A coherent pirate crew made up of a bunch of stragglers from different parts of time and space, or maybe just a cosplay troupe with a bunch of very different definitions of the idea of "space bandit." Lance had managed to end up matching Allura's gaudy steampunk air pirate chic, while Pidge and Shiro had landed somewhere around post-apocalyptic cyberpunk, complete with useless LED lights piping around Shiro's metal arm under attempts to make it look less obviously Galra. Meanwhile, Hunk had only been able to find in his size (and with no extra sleeves) a fur-lined greatcoat that found his image somewhere in the area of russian space viking, and Coran had, for reasons unknown, immediately and without hesitation donned a full set of armor with horned helmet. And as for Keith himself, he wasn't sure what the description "Vincent Valentine's gay little brother" meant but he had a feeling it was not complementary.

The acquisition of a passport, it seemed to Keith, was much the same all over the universe. It involved waiting in a terrible plastic chair among strangers for an hour until the bureaucrat at the counter was ready to receive or deny you at their leisure. And even when they reached the bored geruda they reached a whole new problem that should have occurred to them far, far earlier: Not even Allura and Coran could read the forums they were supposed to fill out. There was a moment where it seemed like panic would break and out Lance and Hunk would charge the counter and take hostages, but Shiro quickly stepped forward to do what he does best.

"Hi there," he said to the girl at the counter, beaming an awkward little smile at her. "Uh, may I ask a question?"

She looked more interested than before she got an eyeful of Shiro's jawline, but held her ground. "Fill out the forums and move to the back of the line, sir."

"I'd love to, but I'm afraid there's a problem there. We're all from, uh… A bit far away from here, and as it is none of us can actually read the current version of the local language. I don't suppose you have these documents in a version of Elpisian from about ten thousand years ago, or maybe a just a translator?"

The girl's eyes widened, blinking in surprise at him. " Ten thousand years? I can't believe you're that old! "

He chuckled a bit, leaning forward to rest an arm on the counter, "No, we're not ten thousand years old ourselves, but I guess our culture is." Keith smothered a laugh with the knowledge that Shiro wouldn't have realized the way he'd just changed his body language, but the geruda had taken note, leaning forward herself until their faces were only inches apart. "We're all from Magrathea, which unfortunately hasn't actually existed for quite a while."

She made an impressed sort of chirping sound, gasping "Oh, my! That planet's been dead for so long, I had no idea any its people could still be alive! How ever did you survive with no planet for ten millennia?"

"Well, as I understand it our ancestors immigrated to Krikket - "

"- Which was locked in a time bubbled five thousand years ago! Oh goodness, I wonder if there were many Magrathean refugees there when they sealed it up…"

Shiro nodded deeply, face solemn. "I'm afraid there were." He sure was laying it on thick for a story they'd cobbled together in ten minutes using a children's almanac they'd picked up on Trisol. "But on the plus side," Shiro smiled, "that means technically, they are all still alive!"

The geruda's eyes sparkled, and she clapped her hands together. "You know, I never thought of that! I guess time prison isn't such a bad punishment after all!" Her figure bounced up and down a bit behind the window, and Keith recalled a similar gesture from one of the local girls he'd seen before. "So, then how did your crew get out of being sealed away, too?"

"That's the fun part," Shiro grinned at her voice dropping like he was sharing a secret, and as predicted the girl swooned a little. "Our direct ancestors were actually pirates. They were off planet on a raid when they heard the sentence for Krikket, so instead of going back home to port they became nomads. Wandering the black skies for thousands of years, never making home on any planet too long in the hopes of preserving the ancient ways of our people."

"Oh, how romantic~!" The geruda cooed, batting her feathery eyelashes. "I bet you have so many amazing stories you could tell."

"I bet you have some stories of your own," they both laughed. "And as it happens, until our visas clear our crew will have plenty of free time around town… Ah, but we'll still need to fill out the forums?"

She waved a hand in front of her face. "Oh of course that'll be no problem! With my expert skills, we can have this wrapped up in like, two minutes! I'll just need a bit of information on everyone in the crew, I can fill in the blanks in just a jiffy after that!"

Shiro's smile was radiant. "That'd be a big help, I really owe you one."

A tittering laugh. "Well, I'm sure you can think of some way to repay me." It was only at that moment that a light of dawning came to Shiro's eyes as he realized what he'd just done. Keith was the only one who noticed, no one else in the room understanding what exactly had just happened here. There was no time for him to try to backtrack, because she was already cheerfully asking "Okay, so can I get everyone's names?"

Which was also the point every one of them realized they'd forgotten to come up with fake names for themselves. "R-right," Shiro said, taking his elbow off the counter and a step or two back away from the window. He gestured to Allura, standing behind him with her arms crossed and a look of quiet anger on her face that bordered on apocalyptic. "This is our illustrious captain -"

"Fenchurch," Allura cut in sharply. "Captain Fenchurch, ma'am."

Shiro pretended he wasn't terrified of her to continue with renewed confidence. "...Indeed, Fenchurch. Which I suppose would make me Zaphod Beeblebrox. And this over here," he gestured to Pidge, "Agrajag," to Hunk, "Zarniwoop," next to him was Coran, "Yooden Vranx..."

The next person down the line was Lance, who before Shiro could come up with a name for burst in with the introduction "Hotblack Desiato, at your service!"

When the girl gave him a weird look for his untimely interruption, Shiro sidestepped him casually. "You'll have to forgive him, his brain's still a little off after spending the last year dead."

Feathery eyes blinked rapidly. "Dead?"

"For tax purposes," Lance assured.

"Oh! Well that's a little brilliant, actually." She looked towards Keith. "And who's the last one there?"

Shiro and Lance both looked at Keith, and then, just for half a second, at each other. "Marvin," they agreed nearly in unison, and once again Keith got the distinct feeling he was missing something. Marvin… The Martian? Was this a Looney Toons joke? Keith could think of literally no other explanation.

"Perfect!" The geruda chirped, and went to typing rapidly on her computer for a moment. "If you've got an ECHO device I can get the details for, I'll be able to send you confirmation when your passports come through. And um, I'll go ahead and send you my number as well, so you can call me if you need anything else?"

Shiro nodded, giving her the address Pidge's funky internet goggles could be reached at. Having already taken up an extraordinary amount of one clerk's time, the lot of them left as quickly as they could.

When they got outside to the alley behind the office building, everyone turned to look at Shiro. Shiro didn't notice, having buried his face in his hands the instant he was out of the gerdua girl's sight. "Oh my god. Fuck. Fuck what just happened back there? Did I just make a date?" Keith finally let himself burst into laughter.

Lance's body flew into a spasm. "Did you not even MEAN to do that?! Did you just outdo every move I've ever made on a girl - combined - on **accident?!** "

"I was trying to be polite! I went into that trying only to be polite, it just… Got out of hand."

Allura looked like the answer had managed to offend her even more than the entire affair already had to begin with. "That girl has feelings! I cannot believe you would just lead her on for the sake of something as petty as skipping out on paperwork!"

The words hit Shiro like blows, his shoulders hunching low like a big berated dog. "I didn't -" he cut off the automatic defense, sighing. "I know. I'm sorry." Which turned the situation from funny down to just sad.

Keith cleared his throat, coming in with, "It's not his fault. This is what happens every time he talks to a woman when he needs something from her. He doesn't know how to handle girls," he snorted, trying to choke the laughter back into his throat. "So when he tries to be nice it ends up outrageous flirting." It was getting a bit hard to breathe around the laughter threatening to burst out of Keith's lungs, a memory he'd been lucky enough to be standing nearby to witness nearly breaking his composure. "Like this one time when Lieutenant Solomon came to give him a dressing down for getting loose with the rules, but when he tried to get out of trouble instead he ended up somehow sucked into some weird three way poly date with her and her boyfriend!"

"Shut up , Keith." Shiro hissed from under his palms.

Keith was the only one laughing, the others all looking somewhat baffled and unsettled. Keith figured they just weren't appreciating how truly hopeless Shiro was with girls, and was more than prepared to enlighten them. "It's only when he doesn't want to flirt though. Remember that one time when you were trying to chat up Lizzie Chavez, but you ended up telling her -"

" I know every person you've had a crush on since we met ," Shiro interrupted in a coarse, desperate voice.

To Keith's credit, the first thing that statement brought to mind was the memory of the day after he'd twisted a foot and needed Hunk to carry him to the med bay, and the subsequent angry rant to Shiro about how unfair it was to Keith that a guy could be so nice and have arms that huge at the same time and even in SPACE he couldn't get away from distractingly hot guys. It was only after that that Keith remembered further back years ago to a botched confession of love to Shiro himself, and knew immediately that was not the sort of history that needed to be shared with Lance.

He glanced at Lance first, then back to Shiro, narrowing his eyes. "And you're saying you're willing to weaponize this information?"

Shiro returned the glare evenly. "You keep talking I'll start talking, young man."

Young man, huh? With that card dropped, Keith knew exactly the counterattack to make Shiro crumble. "If you do," he started slowly, voice dropped so low as to be barely audible. "I will tell you in exact, portrait-like detail everything Lance did to me last night."

As expected, a look of true and absolute horror split Shiro's expression. "Jesus christ, man."

"Truce?"

"Truce," Shiro dubiously agreed, and the two continued to stare at each other with eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Around them, the rest of the stunned crew had only one thing to add. And that was Lance's eloquent declaration, "What the fuck was that?! What just happened here?! "

Five minutes later as they were walking back to the castle to begin the long wait for their visas to clear, Shiro's eyebrows drew together lowly, and without thinking he turned to Keith to clarify "Wait a minute - last night ? Last night you had a panic attack."

Keith for once decided to embrace the urge to look smug. "Yeah, I did."

Frowning in confusion, Shiro turned back ahead to watch Lance's back as he walked ahead of them, "How did…" Apparently against his own wishes, Shiro looked impressed. "I don't wanna know, and I don't want to think about it."

"Nope," Keith agreed cheerfully. "You do not."

In the following three days it took for their visas to clear, nothing eventful particularly happened. Except for the part where Allura insisted that Shiro call the geruda clerk back and arrange a date with her, which she and Lance then not only orchestrated but also directly intruded on, clumsily stalking the pair until the poor girl got uncomfortable enough to go home. But other than that, pretty much nothing happened.

Even with the weird-bad date the girl had apparently delivered in good form, sending them a message telling them where they could pick up the physical copies of their visas and where to go to get into Concordia after a few short days. And suddenly, finally, they had made it. Their passes cleared and the guards let them through the gates and past the city's barriers, finally entering the metropolis they'd already spent a week just trying to get into.

Even having been able to see the city from Fyrestone, the view had in no way prepared them for Concordia's true majesty. The instant they got within the barrier Keith could smell the difference in the air, the hot dry smell of the desert instantly replaced with something not only at least twenty degrees cooler but somehow almost artificially clean, like the recycled air of a closed spaceship.

So disconcerting was the smell and temperature drop, it took well until they were into the city for Keith to realize how different it looked from the inside, as well. Looking at Concordia from outside of town, the barrier had colored everything in a shade of soft blue battling against the pale orange of the daylight sky. But from the inside it was invisible, leaving a clear view of Elips's orange creamsicle sky and red-purple mountains. The city was somehow even more colorful than the surroundings, starting with the coral pink shade of brick the buildings were hewn in. They weren't laid out like any city Keith had ever seen, instead of an array of singular buildings surging upwards like stalagmites the city seemed to be built on layered tiers. Entire blocks of buildings only two stories high with roofs that stretched out past the walls to make walkways reaching to building stacks next door that were even higher, and even stacks of buildings that seemed to start midair and only to climb and layer for the sole purple of filling more of the sky. The towers that did exist, shiny with mirrored glass instead of stone, still didn't stand by themselves. Skyways branching out of the walls randomly like the legs of a spider, connecting buildings to rooftops to buildings until the city had an interconnecting web of people-filled paths branching through the skies, everything connected to everything like threads holding the city together by the seams.

And then there were the airships. An entire traffic system moved into the sky, roads marked by the glow of holographic billboards, the panels of light casting the buildings around them in a reflected rainbow. On the very ground the city had never bothered to pave over the distemperate red sands, instead installing raised stone sidewalks to minimize the amount of sand in everyone's shoes and leaving the rest to the whims of nature. Not that the surface of Elpis had been abandoned by any means, white streets filled with the constant hustle of foot traffic and all around them in the sand were planted market stalls of every shape and size and color and ware imaginable.

The effect was nearly overwhelming to step into, and Keith was not the only one who seemed to feel that way. The instructions from the clerk girl had included directions on what part of the city they should exit into when they left the warp stations, which were a teleportation-type affair the paladins had met before on other high-tech planets. Thinking they basically understood what Concordia looked like they had all assumed they were prepared, and thusly all seven warriors of Voltron were struck dead still with wonder when they exited the building they were in to find more color than they'd probably seen in their life, all shining around an ever-moving cacophony of alien life. Looking around at the people it seemed like it hadn't mattered much what they picked to wear, after all - they might as well have stepped out of reality and into a scifi convention on that regard; a woman that looked like an armored valkyrie chatting amicably with a giant sentient blob with no face being among the most average of people their immediate surroundings.

It might have been a good thing that they all stood there boggling, because it had apparently given their tourguide plenty of opportunity to spot them.

"You lot standing around in awe like slack-jawed yokels wouldn't happen to be the crew of the Heart of Gold, would you?" The man who introduced himself seemed like a standard, albeit blue, humanoid alien. When he walked towards them the motion was fluid, though, too smooth for human eyes to register as natural and the first thing that Keith noticed about the man became the fact that his legs were not legs at all but a set of six squid-like tentacles, split into threes to form a pair of "legs" and bound at the knees with a metal brace that presumably gave him the support necessary to stand upright on land.

Allura regained her regal demeanor, turning a sharp glare on the strange fish man. "And whom might be so rudely asking?"

"Why madam, are you playing power games with me or are you really just that ignorant?" The grin that split the man's face was shark-like and pleased, slitted eyes casting up and down first Allura, then the rest of them with an appraising eye and low whistle. "My, do I like what I see! I had been wondering what Magratheans could possibly look like but I hadn't expected you all to be quite this pretty ." He slithered around Allura to land behind Hunk, casting his eyes up and down the crew as he paced a slow circle around them. "All sorts of colors and sizes! What is this you're covered in here, is that skin?" A rubbery finger reached out as if to poke Pidge's face until it was unceremoniously swatted away. The man's pleased, jagged grin was undeterred, slinking back around to face Allura again. He offered a hand, only at the last moment pretending to be polite as he finally introduced himself. "Veret Everett at your service, and I'll be at your every whim as personal liaison to the Merchant's Guild of Elpis."

Which meant of course, they were all stuck with him. At least for as long as it took to set up their stupid furniture store, which meant today had just turned into an adventure in patience. The authoritative scowl didn't leave Allura's face as she met his hand with hers in something that loosely resembled a handshake, and Veret took great and obvious pleasure in the irritation he caused. "Captain Fenchurch. We're interested in selling off some antique furniture we've acquired, preferably in a hurry."

"And I will devote myself to helping you with this task~" Veret grinned, not letting go of Allura's hand. Instead he changed his hold into a caress and stroked his fingers down the length of her hand, admiring "My god, you're even softer than you look! Tell me darling, are you soft all over?"

Damn near every one of them all made a move towards the squid but it was Shiro who actually got there, metal hand clamping around Veret's wrist and yanking it away from Allura so fast even Allura herself hadn't had time to react. "Do not," he said lowly, voice dangerous. "Speak to our captain that way."

Veret failed to look intimidated, instead choosing to cast his lecherous gaze towards Shiro and leaning into the hold he still had on him. "Why there's no need to be jealous, Mr. Tall Dark and Terrifying. If you want to join the party I'm more than capable of handling both of you at once."

Somewhere behind him Keith heard Lance mutter "Oh my god please tell me I don't sound like that."

"Only a little," Hunk reassured him quietly.

"Yeah, you're less gross 'cause at least your lines are clean." Pidge added in a whisper.

Shiro ignored all of this. He kept a sharp, pirate-fierce glare directed on Veret, hissing "Just stick to business," as he let the wrist drop from his iron grasp.

Veret's laugh was obscene, shameless and deliberately taunting. "I do adore you bandit thug types, always trying to force your way around. But try to remember that I'm actually here to help you? The MGE isn't exactly aching for small-time business like yours, and should your guide decide to wander off instead of assisting you I think you'd have a hard time figuring out how to rent the space to sell your wares. You'll have come all this way to Concordia for nothing, what a pity!"

Unfortunately, he wasn't wrong about that. They needed a way to get information, a conversation opener to talk to strangers - an entire two days had been wasted just trying to get into the city, figuring out how to find a rebellion they weren't even sure existed would be impossible if they didn't have some sort of plan. Not to mention the fact that their visas would expire if they failed to actually work in the field they'd filed for. Which meant they weren't just stuck with a disgusting lech, they were stuck with a disgusting lech who liked to flaunt his power and fuck with people just because he could; a perfect combination. They'd be lucky if they went the day unmolested.

Allura's face was pinched, and Keith could see her headache from here. "If you intend to extort us, you'll find we don't need the business quite that badly, either."

Veret's smile changed like a mask slipped from his face, grin turning from wicked to charming and friendly with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "Nah, not really my thing." He dismissed easily, waving a hand. "It all just means I get to be as annoying as I want and no one can do anything." He grinned again, self-satisfied and indeed, annoying to behold. He clapped his hands together in a sudden start. "Allright, allright. So, furniture, was it?" He swished around to face the street, starting into a slithering stride before he even bothered to see if anyone was still behind him. "We'll need a pretty big space for you then, it'll hard to display your wares attractively if they're all stacked on top of each other willy-nilly like Tetra Blocks, eh?"

A bit warily, the crew had no real choice but to follow. "Now you just came out of Warp Station, does that mean your ship isn't parked anywhere close by? Do have dollies for transportation, or were you planning on moving your ship to one of Concordia's underground ports? Because the fee for that is a little pricey, especially if it's a big ship."

"We're landed outside of the city, and hadn't planned on moving our ship, no." Allura confirmed, and Veret made an understanding noise.

The city around them seemed to only grow denser with people, nary a single spot of land free of life no matter how the surrounding sand they wallowed in tried to discourage them. The sidewalks, it seemed, existed mainly for the flow of people trying to get to somewhere from somewhere than anything, so many shops planted directly in the dirt that the people had no choice or apparently qualm about milling about in the sand to buy things from them. "So the easiest thing will probably be to rent you a cargo ship," Veret said, an ECHO screen appearing something on his wrist as he paged through an illegible list on the translucent screen. "Oh, there's a Firefly class that's free right now, that'll run you nice and cheap, and the mid-sized hull ships like that are great for cargo transport. We can just make that another percentage fee like the land will be so you don't have to worry about any kind of down payment, since the Guild can always, you know. Rob you and break your legs, or whatever. I don't know, Collection isn't my department. I hear they can get pretty creative."

"Will we be able to get freely from our ship back into Concordia where our shop is located? Or are we to move all of the goods at once?"

"Well, the Firefly will be able to get you in and out of Concordia no problem, it's owned by the Guild so it has clearance to use the space ports with only a brief check of all your visas on the way back inside. But if you don't get a shop anywhere close to where you want the trip could take quite a bit of time since ships can't exactly use the Warp Stations to just teleport to where you wanna be in the city. We can look at a few locations, see if they look like what you need, but before anything else we need to get you into HQ to set up a contract. First things first, right?"

Allura nodded, her footsteps clicking oddly loud against the sidewalk even among the white noise of the city. "If possible, we'd prefer not to have to find lodgings within the city at night when the shop is closed. If we could find a location southern enough to make our trip back to the Heart of Gold shorter, we'd be much appreciative."

Veret grinned, slinging a friendly and completely unwelcome arm around her shoulder. "See, now that information is helpful to me! This is how we work together, yeah? Can't get you what you want if you don't tell me what you need ." He gestured between himself and Allura. "I like this, what we've got here. I think you and I have some good chemistry."

This time it was Coran who pulled Veret off of her, yanking him by the back of his collar with the cheerful "Off we go!"

Keith was just glad Allura wasn't expected them to sleep in some kind of hotel in town. It wasn't that Keith disliked Concordia, in fact as far as cities went he actually kind of liked what this place had going. But it was a still a strange city and he still didn't trust anyone or anything in it. Keith liked cities in general, preferred them over small towns for the anonymity and ease of access to places to sleep and dumpsters to steal perfectly good food from. But for all that he understood and felt comfortable in cities, that wasn't the same as feeling safe . Pretty much anywhere with people wasn't safe, actually, which meant that Keith had trouble sleeping any time they were out of the Castle of Lions. Yeah, cities were fine, but Keith still preferred the open empty space of absolutely nowhere if he could choose.

But not the desert, he thought with a sudden surge of bitterness. If he ever got the chance to retire to Earth and pick where he wanted to live, he was going somewhere with trees, damn it. And grass. Maybe a farm or something. Keith could totally be a farmer. Not like, a food farmer, because he was so bad with plants he'd managed to get impatient and overwater a cactus until it drowned. But maybe like… An alpaca farm, or something, he was good with animals. What would that even require, like, shearing wool and cleaning the stables and taking them out to graze? He could do that. Keith could totally retire to Canada to raise alpaca.

It'd be nice he wasn't completely alone though. Ideally, of course, Keith supposed he'd have Lance with him, although he didn't figure Lance would much like being stranded out in the middle of the wild with just Keith and some animals. Well there were farms that were close to rural areas, right? They could like. Drive over to visit Lance's family on the weekends, or something. Of course that still left him with just Keith and god knows what to do for the rest of the time...

Stupid. What the hell was Keith even thinking about right now, anyway? They were all gonna die in this shitty space war anyway, so it's not like it mattered what kind of half-baked plans for the future Keith might dream up.

He was snapped out of his thoughts with repulsed shudder when Keith felt an unfamiliar hand touching his hair, fingers brushing against the the puff of his ponytail for a half a second before he jerked away with an automatic draw of his knife. Veret held up his empty hands in defense with a playful shark-toothed smile, turning up the charm and using a syrup-sweet voice to pour out the apology "Sorry, it was just so cute I couldn't help but try to touch~"

Keith felt a hot itchy anger swell inside of him, familiar in a way he hadn't had to deal with in a long time. Another one of those jerks who thought they could talk their way out of anything just because they were good looking; Keith had met this type before. Keith had been a date and a half with this type before, which may or may not have involved more making out than Keith would ever now admit to. This guy wasn't even all that, he may have that sort of handsome-ish face but you'd have to be way into tentacles and douchebags to be attracted to this prick. "Yeah, well any part of you touches me again and it gets cut off ."

"See, now you threatening me is actually not a deterrent at all, because I do like me the feisty ones." At this point Keith didn't even expect a response that wasn't smug so Veret's smirk was hardly a surprise. He leaned in to look Keith in the face, silver-blue eyes meeting his own in a searching look that set Keith on edge so much he flushed and took a step backwards before he could steel himself against reacting. "Goodness, would you get a look of those eyes! You are just an ungodly kind of pretty, aren't you?"

"HEEEYYY, now," Lance cut in, and Keith could see exactly where this was going. Keith would also be a lot more comfortable with this mission if some suspicious entitled jerkoff from the Merchant's Guild did not have so much insight into Keith's personal life as to know who he was involvedwith. As far as they knew right now MGE might actually just be a big crime organization, and showing any hints of personal attachments or weaknesses to this guy might result in their backs getting knived before they even knew what was what.

Keith turned his glare to Lance, trying to figure how how to communicate an idea somewhere along the lines of 'shut your fucking mouth.' What he said instead was a harshly hissed out " You just stay out of this."

Lance reeled back like he'd been slapped. "What did I even do?!"

Keith kept his eyes on Veret, who had unfortunately indeed been watching with a curious eye. The alien smirked to himself, the private little smile of a predator that had just caught the scent of blood. He turned his tentacles to Lance, swooping over to meet his eye next and cheerfully declare "And yours are just the most magnificent shade of blue! I didn't even notice, what a treasure ~"

Lance, unused being flirted with, tensed ramrod straight and flushed bright red like a cherry tomato. This was not the reaction that mattered, though - Keith had been watching Veret who had in turn kept one of the beady yellow squid eyes decorating his temple trained intentionally on Keith. And quite against his will Keith had been unable to stop himself from reacting, the petty possessive part of him screeching about getting that fucksquid off of his man making Keith's jaw clench and his fist curl around his still-drawn knife.

Veret looked like he had been handed a prize, and Keith felt instantly hideously transparent. Fuck. Fuck, he had been seen right through in an instant, might as well have handed Veret a silver platter labeled "vulnerabilities."

What was worse was that Keith became more certain that had been the man's goal all along by the second. He had started out floating around all the paladins neutrally before, making flirting remarks at each one of them in passing like he was testing the waters. After that exchange, however, Veret's attentions became quite focused, zeroing in on Keith specifically like a fox on a henhouse. Which meant that even worse than an indiscriminate lech, this guy was calculated . Keith was beginning to see that every word this guy said was intentional, either to provoke a specific reaction or leave a certain impression, he was sure of it. And if the impression he **wanted** to give was that of an irritating entitled fuckboy, then what the fuck could this guy be hiding that was worse than that?

The answer was probably deadly, and Keith was determined not to be caught off guard. If everything about his personality was designed to repulse people, then that meant Keith should do the opposite and keep a close of an eye on this guy possible.

It would be less irritating if his flirting were at least more charming. What the hell kind of moron thought it was a good idea to go around calling a man 'pretty' and think it was a compliment? This prick wasn't even the first guy to try to use that line. Keith already knew he was pretty, and it had sure never done him any fucking favors. Pretty had gotten him treated like a girl for an entire date with one guy, and it had landed him another date with a dude who had only been interested in actually learning about Keith as far as figuring out how to get into his pants. And he'd been the one Keith had tried out a second date with (2).

Unbidden, the memory of Lance's awestruck voice whispering " You're so pretty; look so gorgeous right now," echoed around in Keith's head, and he couldn't fight off the blush if he'd tried. Well. That had been during sex, that was a whole different thing altogether. Outside of sex Lance didn't call him pretty. Had called him prettyboy as an insult, but that didn't count either; same as how he called Keith's eyes or hair pretty once or twice, but had also managed to sound more like the fact offended him than he was actually trying to compliment Keith. No, when Lance wanted to compliment Keith he'd tell him he liked how Keith looked when he smiled, or how he loved the sound of his laugh. Freely threw out praise during training and combat, was always telling Keith how cool that move had just been or weren't they both such badasses together? That was... That was how you complimented another boy, right there.

"You know, babydoll, I'd be able to drop the pet names if you'd finally give up and tell me your real one."

Keith huffed an annoyed sigh out of his nose. There was no way Keith was giving him his real name, but at least Marvin would be better than 'Sweetcheecks.' Well. Maybe not Marvin . "Marv," he settled on telling him, which may have been a mistake to give the squid that much leeway because the smile he beamed at Keith was damn near radiant.

"Mars?" Veret asked with interest. Which, no, had not been what Keith said, but it was close enough and he was hardly going to correct him considering he'd given him a cooler alias than Shiro and Lance had picked. "What a gorgeous name! I think there's a star or a constellation called that few systems over."

Given how big the universe was and the current outdated language barrier between them there was a pretty good chance they were not thinking of the same Mars. Nonetheless, possibly because astronomy was largely the only topic Keith could add anything to a conversation about, he heard himself offer "There's a planet called Mars in the galaxy we came from." And, just as an idle afterthought he added. "It's covered in red sand, too."

"How fitting," Veret commented, toning down the flirtation in his voice enough to be tolerable to listen to. But not in his words, because of course he went on to say "If it's half as majestic as you are I'll have to visit sometime."

From the corner of his eye Keith could see Lance seething. Which Keith understood on a basic level but was ultimately also pretty annoying considering how he'd acted that first day in Fyrestone. The thought was enough to spark a renewed flare of saltiness, and just because he knew it would piss Lance off even more he continued where Veret had left the conversation open. "Never been there. I don't like deserts."

Veret laughed, loud and possibly genuine. "Bet'cha just fucking loooove Elpis then!" He had been weaving them through the maze of walkways towards a shining glass tower for a while now, and it seemed like the skyscraper they had just reached was the one he'd meant to arrive at. Still strolling casually like he was among friends and not a group of people he very badly annoyed, Veret entered the doors without looking back and finally stopped bothering Keith in favor of turning back to Allura. "Oookay, this is the lobby where your crew is free to not rob the place while I take you to meet some people and sign some tablet screens, shall we?"

Shiro was quick to step forward. "She will not go unescorted after you already insisted she disarm at the entrance."

Veret rolled his eyes, not pausing. "Fine, then come with, I don't give a shit. Just hurry up, the actual work part of my job is the part I hate most and I'd like to wrap this up in a timely manner."

Somewhere around the exact instant Veret lead her into the elevator and they were alone, Lance turned on Keith. "What the fuck was all of THAT?"

Yeah, saw this one coming. Keith lowered his voice, hissing out "Can't you even try to be subtle?"

Lance just bristled, voice still sharp and high as he snapped out "And what do you even mean by that? "

"I mean, " Keith bit out, not raising his voice because at least he wasn't trying to to attract the attention of everyone on the whole fucking floor. "Why don't you try being quieter and not spreading around my personal business all over the fucking city!"

Lance's face was contorted in irritation, but at least he stopped yelling to join Keith in an angry whisper. " Fine. But you still have to answer why the fuck you just spent the last ten minutes flirting with that… that fucksquid!"

" **I** was not flirting, you ass, I was being flirted at! Which considering how I let you act every time we land on a new planet makes one of us a fucking hypocrite!"

"Then it must be you because at least I never pretended I didn't have already have a boyfriend!"

And what did that even have to do with anything? "Did you forget we're trying to keep a low profile here? I don't want to go letting everyone around here know about my personal attachments. Do you even remember what we're here for!?"

"What does it even matter who knows that about us?!" Lance scoffed, nearly spitting out the next words. "Just because we're being discreet means the entire whoever-knows-how-long we'll be here I'm just supposed to pretend you're not my boyfriend?!"

" Now is not the time to deal with this ," Keith's eyes darted around to the other occupants of the room who were starting to look curiously at the very obviously fighting pair. Still keeping his voice as quiet as he could when he was this pissed off, he hissed back, "You won't have a boyfriend at all if you keep trying to have this fight in the middle of a crowded fucking room!"

A gauntlet-clad hand landed heavy on each one of their shoulders. And if it had been anyone else it might not have been enough to stop the fight. But as it was, it was who Coran softly said, "I'm afraid he is right about this being rather a bad time. Now I'm all for having a good row to work things out, but it'll have to wait til we get back to the, uh, Heart of Gold, now won't it?"

Lance bit his lip, fist still clenched tight around nothing even as he looked away and nodded. Keith never did figure out exactly how or why Lance and Coran had bonded so, but not even Shiro's authoritative leader voice managed to get Lance to follow a request faster than a disappointed sounding Coran could.

And to be honest it was a good thing he'd stepped in when he did, because Keith was still full boil in his own rage. Fucking Lance always did this, could never manage to take these missions seriously even their lives were in danger. Why the hell couldn't he just understand how easy it was for someone to use the fact that they cared about each other against them? Was his stupid manpride more important than basic self-preservation?

When Allura and Veret came back downstairs it was to a tense and uncomfortable silence. Wearing her best pirate captain face Allura instantly dismissed it, "The arrangements are made. I'll need a couple of you to find your way down to the shipyard to secure the Firefly we've rented, but I want that cargo ship back to the Heart of Gold and being loaded by the time the rest of us pick out a decent shop location."

Without any kind of discussion necessary, Keith went with Coran to shipyard while Lance stayed to continue following Allura. They could both use a few hours away from each other right now.

(2.) When Keith insisted that their second date involve actually leaving his dorm room and getting food in the outside world, his date had proceeded to take him to a total dive, order only water for both of them, talk excessively about his ex-girlfriend, and hit on the waiter all while simultaneously groping Keith's thigh under the table. Keith had excused himself to the bathroom and then climbed out the window.

The ship they rented was named Inara, and Keith fell in love instantly. Okay, that was an exaggeration. Keith didn't fall in love until about fifteen minutes into the flight back to the castle when Coran cheerfully declared that ship was a right dream to fly and asked if Keith wanted to take a crack at her. And maybe it was the way he liked Inara's slightly temperamental controls, or maybe just because it had been so very long since he'd gotten a chance to fly anything, even poor neglected Red, but Keith sort of refused to give up the pilot's seat after that and insisted on the flying the rest of the nearly hour long flight to the castle himself. As for how much more relaxed he felt afterwards, Keith couldn't even find it in himself to be surprised. It just went to show how much he hated being cooped up in small spaces like they had been recently. Just having that little bit of control that flying the ship gave him, having the power to fly straight on into the sky and away from Elpis or crash them into the ground and kill them all in an instant… Yeah, he didn't have a handle on his life or emotions or anything, but at least at that moment he had complete say over where the fuck he went and that meant a lot right now.

And it's a good thing he did manage to cool his head a little, because a few hours after the lot of them loaded up the ship with wares to bring to their new store Hunk had all but cornered him. Apparently the three they'd left behind had wound up splitting up after they'd made sure they knew how the fuck they planned on getting to the shop every day, Pidge and Lance wandering off to explore the city a while while Allura finalized the last of their official business with Veret. Hunk had been able to contact both of the girls in order to tell them dinner would be ready soon and they should start heading back, but no one had been able to get a hold of Lance yet. Hunk had then proceeded to make it abundantly clear that he expected Keith to be the one to and find him, even though he would have to take a podship the fifteen minute flight back to Concordia's nearest border crossing/warp station and then THEN wander around the streets near the shop for a while trying to locate his errant boyfriend when Pidge was actually still around the city to do so themself. But of course, Hunk had been exactly as present for Keith and Lance's fight earlier that day as everyone else in a five mile radius, and the pointed look on his face when he asked Keith to look for him told more than enough of a story. So Keith set off.

It was kind of nice, being able to wander around Concordia by himself. He was already used to watching his own back, so it wasn't so hard to keep his guard up when he only had to be aware of his own location and not his plus seven other people. This meant he could spend more of his attention on the city itself, vibrant and dirty and beautiful in a way that a lot of the too-technologized metropoli of the civilized universe tended to fail at, all cold and sterile in their robotic cleanliness. Yeah, as far cities went, Keith liked this one.

The streets and walkways were color-coded along with being labeled, so even with their inability to read Elpisian it was surpisingly easy to navigate. There were childish-looking maps randomly posted like those in shopping malls and incredibly distinct landmarks like the giant pond full of fish people taking up three blocks of the upper west side, so even though Keith's directions had been more or less along the lines of "follow the blue path up to the four story building and then leave on the second floor to yellow street that travels over the dog park," he had managed to actually find his way around without too much difficulty.

He found the empty street stall they'd be occupying by the time Elpis's red sun set, the blue one rising to take its place like the spinning hands of a clock. And Keith knew enough about cities to be pretty sure they'd been set up in the slums, the brick buildings cracked and holographic billboards flickering in and out of life in the sky the first signs of disrepair as the surroundings grew almost imperceptibly shadier. That alone was enough to set Keith back on edge, a new concern for the disappeared Lance growing where he'd at first been sure his boyfriend had just gotten distracted and lost or ignored his communicator.

It was somewhere near the small jelly man loudly selling something called paopu oil (3) that Keith heard the familiar sound of laser fire. He stilled, listening carefully for more sound. The area he was in wasn't crowded by any means, but there was still enough noise form the passing traffic overhead that he had to strain his ears, only hearing another shot nearly a full minute later and no other signs of any struggle, which should have been audible if the quiet sound of the gun had been. He headed towards the sound, hoping it was someone who happened to have a gun that sounded similar to Lance's bayard, or some other sort of laser being fired for some other non gun-y purpose, casting his eyes around his surroundings as he headed deeper towards the empty ghettos of the run down neighborhood, the tangle of buildings growing less organized and more familiarly shambled like the slums of any city on Earth.

It didn't take too much longer before Keith caught a flash of light overhead, and he followed the line of fire to one of the abandoned rooftops of a short two-story building, a small space overshadowed by the ten-floor apartment building it stood next to. Half-hidden in the shadows cast by the complex next door was a hunched figure that could easily be Lance-shaped, and Keith followed the path of the next careful shot fired to see no enemy or person if any kind. Instead being fired upon was the cracked and fuzzy screen of a giant, wall-sized television repeating an infomercial where a regally dressed geruda woman was giving the same speech ad infinitum. But if it was Lance - and it probably was considering how many human-shaped aliens wielding laser rifles there probably were wandering around this area - then why the hell was he shooting at a TV?

He nearly jumped at the sound of a small explosion somewhere behind him, and Keith whirled around to look for the source. But the only response was an alarm going off and someone screaming "God damn it, Roberto," and even stranger still Keith was now pretty sure he heard an entirely different gun coming from back the direction he'd came from near their shop. Actually, that was probably the gun Keith had heard in the first place considering how far away he'd wandered to get to here, and just what the hell kind of neighborhood was this?

He turned back to the TV, trying to decide if there was any particular reason this particular gun was being shot at this particular screen today. The well-dressed geruda took up most of the screen's image, so it took a second glance for Keith to notice the lettering that blinked and scrolled and waved along the bottom of the screen in patterns that probably made sense if you knew Elpisian. He watched the slow shots as they hit the image, each one fizzing uselessly off the screen in a tiny burst of static that rippled in harsh lines all through the picture. And slowly, Keith realized that the firing was nearly perfectly timed, aiming for one specific letter as it made it's not-quite random journey across the bottom of the screen every time the video recycled.

Target practice, he realized. In a street that wasn't even empty, and no one had noticed because the people in this neighborhood just didn't pay attention to that kind of background noise. Which at first Keith thought was pretty friggin' weird, until he remembered how pissed off he himself had been a few hours ago and how the only reason he'd calmed down at all was an hour of commandeering the cargo ship to fly at unsafe speeds in directions only vaguely similar to their actual destination. Maybe Lance had needed his own… catharsis.

Keith turned his gaze back to the other roof, trying to find a path down to the street he was on. There was an odd ladder attached to the side of the building just across the small alley the street split into, and while Keith was not a hundred percent sure it could lead across to the next building seven feet away he figured it was a good a place to start as any considering Concordia's layout was so much like a video game map. Who know what even led where in this place.

When he reached the roof courtesy of the ladder rungs which slid down to meet his grip in a disconcerting way, he was close enough to confirm that it was in fact Lance he was looking at. Crouched low on the nearly hidden roof with his lower body tucked in the shadows, and Keith was quick to notice he had indeed taken off the ridiculous coat of his while he was shooting. Only to realize that the jacket was folded into a square and tucked halfway underneath Lance, cushioning where his elbows where they were propping him up on the hard rooftop. There were… a lot of other things to notice, once the image in front of Keith really set in.

While Elpis had two suns and no discernable night time, not even a city like this could run everything 24/7. Business hours and sleep cycles demand that the geruda pick time to call night, and it made perfect sense to choose the dimmer hours of the blue sun's reign. The light it gave off was less bright and harsh than it's crimson counterpart, turning the sky a pale mint green and casting the shadows long and blue-tinted like the world was caught perpetually in the early hours of dawn. Even the burning bright red sands were dulled into a burgundy by the green night, turning the bright palette of the city into soft cool tones that almost made it seem like the air wasn't exactly as fucking hot and dry as it always was.

The skyway just a few hundred feet overhead of them was purple, its guiding lights casting a violet glow to everything underneath it, and Keith decided that the array of colors complimented Lance well. From his place maybe fifteen feet away or so Keith was close enough to watch the expression on Lance's face, brow tight in concentration as he peered one-eyed through the lens of the wire glasses Pidge had fashioned into his sight scope and his hair a bit mussed out of place where Keith had gelled it back earlier like he'd been unthinkingly running his hands through it. Every time the video recycled the TV across the street flashed its cerulean background, casting Lance's face in a bright blue light for a few seconds at a time, the monotony of the advert's pattern broken by the briefest flickers that were Lance's shots, each small light fast and faint like a firefly charging across the sky.

Firing his gun also complimented Lance well, actually, in a very visual sort of sense. Maybe it was that rare focus shining in his eyes, but it was a very good look on him. Lance really was one handsome son of a bitch, wasn't he? With his jaw and his eyes and his… augh, stop it. He should just stop with his face.

It wasn't really a striking in-your-face kind of handsome like Shiro, though. Keith's first impression of Lance had hardly been flattering and hadn't involved his looks at all - to spite Lance's outrageous efforts, he tended to leave an absolutely terrible impression on anyone he first meets. It was only later on, with careful observation and actual human interaction that one could see Lance wasn't a huge useless douchebag; that there was someone really worthwhile under all that awful swagger.

It had taken Keith himself the effort of actually looking to find that decency. He'd known that someone the Blue Lion had gone so far out of her way to specifically choose as her paladin couldn't be as much of a prick as he'd seemed, and Lance asking him out out of nowhere had only cemented the certainty that there must be more to him than he'd let on. And so Keith had looked for the good in Lance. And… Keith had found it. Had found plenty of it, more than he could even have ever expected.

Lance had a way of bringing humor and levity to nearly any situation, even the ones that really didn't call for it. And Keith had found it endlessly annoying in those first few weeks as paladins, how Lance never seemed to take anything seriously no matter how grave the predicament they would wind up in. And this obviously was still true on occasion, but now Keith could also see the effect it had on other people around them. To aliens who had spent their whole lives oppressed and afraid, meeting the paladins of Voltron may have been a symbol of hope and security, but it was Lance who continued to humanize them time and time again. Keith and Shiro and Pidge and Allura all had the habit of taking their missions too formally and too seriously, but having Lance break the tension with ridiculous declaration of his superiority had a way of putting strangers at ease instead of making them uncomfortable. He was just… so silly , how could they be afraid of these ten-thousand year old warriors if the tall skinny one was flirting unabashedly with the first cute local he could find? Lance reminded everyone they were above all, still just people.

He did that for the paladins as well, of course. Lance ceaselessly and effortlessly continued to remind them all that no matter what else might be true they were all still a bunch of underqualified overworked teenagers, and that no matter how important this war was they still all had to take breaks to do normal goddamned human teenage things like fall asleep watching TV and fighting each other over games they had to make up their own rules to.

Keith had seen the way Lance acted differently the fewer people were in the room. The individual ways he interacted with each of the people on the ship, and how even in these small daily interactions Lance managed to continue to be thoughtful and sweet almost as if by accident. The way he never let Hunk get a chance to get lonely, so constant Lance's presence by his side even after dating Keith had started sucking up his time. How he gave Pidge an excuse to indulge in her childishness, being silly and petty and crude with each other just to prove they could be efficient paladins even if they decided not to be mature a hundred percent of the time (or ideally, as seldom as possible.) The fact that he never let the age gap or leadership role separate Shiro too much from the rest of the paladins, dragging him into card games they always ended up gambling on and intentionally trying rile a fight out of him just because he thought Shiro getting mad enough to curse him out was the funniest thing in the universe(4). How where Allura had failed to find a sister in Pidge Lance had somehow slipped in to fill that gap instead, going together to explore every new planets marketplaces for shopping and talking about fashion frequently enough that Keith doubted their current costumes matching was in the least bit coincidental. The hours on end he'd spent with Coran watching old Altean soap operas in the background of all of the rooms of the castle they were still meticulously cleaning one by one.

Before he could even be aware he was thinking about it memories came to mind of the way Lance looked at Keith . His half-worried smile last night when he'd pulled Keith into dancing with him. That proud little snicker he'd give when their eyes met just after pulling something insane off in training; sharing a quick smile of acknowledgement with one another before diving side-by-side back into combat. The smug little cat grin he'd get when he agitated Keith into another rant or argument, and the satisfied twinkle lighting his eyes whenever he pulled out another secret Keith hadn't meant to tell anyone ever but had ended up telling Lance.

Yeah, Keith had noticed plenty of things. Keith had seen the way Lance acted when he thought no one was watching. And when he let all of his guard down and thought he was really alone Lance looked… small. Sad and afraid and lonely, trying too hard and desperate not to be left behind. Trying to find a place in a group he was already responsible for holding together.

Any of the last traces of anger drained from Keith as easily as letting it fall from his hand, and in its place Keith felt heavy. The increasingly familiar guilty drop of Keith's heart as it swelled big too in for his chest to contain, breath expelling out in a shaky sigh. Keith knew Lance felt like that, but what had he ever done to help? To make Lance feel better about himself, to reassure him that he was wanted and needed? Had he ever managed to help Lance when he was feeling down, the way Lance did for him? Give Lance that beautiful-safe-warm feeling that made the whole world fall away around them like Lance could do for Keith? Had just done the very night before when Keith was at his worst?

Watching Lance, still tense under the blue and violet glow of the city, Keith had the sinking feeling the answer was no. Maybe… Maybe their relationship wasn't just bad for Voltron. Maybe he wasn't even good for Lance.

The idea of breaking up once again surfaced, brought up from looming ever-present and unignorable in the back of Keith's mind. The side of Keith that was certain it was what was best for everyone assured him that they'd both get over it in time, but… But at the same time, it was already way too late. Keith had already figured out who Lance really was, right? He couldn't unsee all of the things that had so endeared him to Keith in the first place. Lance would still be Lance even if they weren't dating, and Keith couldn't go back to how it was before because… Because he'd never be able to feel the way he used to about Lance again. Keith couldn't just unsee how beautiful he was.

Aw, man. Everything sucked. Everything sucked and Keith wanted to kiss his boyfriend.

Keith of course, being the trainwreck of a person he was, managed to continue standing there doing nothing for several long minutes. Turned his attention from Lance to the screen he was aiming at, watching the light of his shots burst against the flashing letters. Actually, now that he was really looking Lance seemed to be hitting quite a few of them, even just as they rapidly appeared against the blue backdrop. How did he know when and where they were going to show up when Keith still couldn't read the pattern himself? Were his reflexes getting that fast or had he just been sitting here long enough to memorize it?

"Nice shooting there, Hot stuff!" Lance startled visibly at Keith's shout, nearly dropping the gun from his hands as his head whipped around to find the source of of the compliment.

"Keith?" Lance asked, sitting up and blinking in confusion for a moment before he remembered the glasses still distorting his vision and pulled them up to rest above his forehead and rubbed at his eyes. "What are you doing here? I thought you went back to the ship with the other guys?"

"Uh, I did, yeah," Keith raised an eyebrow, shifting his weight to put a hand on his hip. "A couple of hours ago. Hunk sent me to find you so you wouldn't miss dinner."

"Wha?" Lance looked even more confused than before, starting to get to his feet. "No way, it's only been like, twenty minutes," he tried to argue as he stood up, only for his knees to wobble out underneath him so that he had to catch himself to stop from dropping straight to the ground. He looked down at his legs like he genuinely couldn't understand why they'd gotten stiff, then up at the now green sky around them with a betrayed look like he couldn't believe the world had been so rude as to continue revolving when he wasn't paying attention. "Or… maybe a bit longer than that," he amended uneasily. He looked back to Keith, his expression still tense and wary like he hadn't decided if he was done being angry yet. "How did you even get up there?"

Keith shrugged. "I don't know, I climbed? How did you get over there?"

Lance looked around himself, once again uncertain. "Uh… I'm not, uh. Sure. Meet you at the bottom?"

The silent break between them while they scrambled back to the street was too long, long enough that Keith couldn't manage to find an opening for conversation once they started walking back towards the warp station. Lance, it seemed, had decided he was not quite done being annoyed with Keith yet, letting the uncomfortable quiet simmer around them.

Which, fine. Keith had been the one to start this fight, he could be the one to finish it. A man took responsibility for his actions.

Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. "Uhhh," he began eloquently. "Sorry for. You know, uh. Not telling you what I wanted or expected from you and then spazzing out when you couldn't read my mind." Nailed it.

Keith was only looking from the corner of his eye, but the surprise on Lance's face was visible. Clearly not having expected Keith to actually apologize so quickly, he squirmed a little. "Yeah, um. No problem." His brows furrowed together like he kind of wanted to still be angry but now had no choice but to make up since Keith had put his foot forward. "Sorry for. Spazzing out right back at you, I guess," he finished stiffly.

The silence settled around them again. It was still awkward. Keith probably had not apologized well enough yet. "It's… I just get..." He sighed, started again. "It's not that I want to hide the fact that we're together as much as, I feel like it's really important that we keep up our appearances right now. There's something about the Merchant's Guild that seems… threatening, and the idea of that skeevy guy knowing that we, um. Care about each other was… too unnerving to handle."

Lance gave Keith a side-eyed look of his own, but his frown didn't look angry. Just… Resigned, maybe? "And why can't us dating just be part of our space pirate disguises?"

For fuck's sake, don't just say we're in disguise in the middle of - Keith shoved down the voice of reason as it tried to pick another fight. Fished around for a way to explain this that Lance would understand. "It's like… You know how superheroes have secret identities? And how it's not actually to protect them , but the people around them who they love so they can't be used against the hero? I was sort of thinking like that."

Lance seemed not to find the metaphor pleasing. "So, what, you're Batman and I'm Vicki Vale, and you're staying away to keep me safe?"

Keith frowned. "No, I was thinking more like, I'm Batman and you're Green Arrow so we BOTH have to shut up. Like. Double the secrets."

"Batman and Green Arrow never made out," Lance scoffed. "They're billionaire buddies." He let a small silence pause him while they walked. "Superman, maybe. I'd believe Batman and Superman have made out before. Have you ever read some of their crossover comics? Some of that shit gets downright romantic ."

Keith tried to remember how Batman and Superman interacted, but could only recall stiff arguments and at best, awkward friendship. "I only ever watched some of those Justice League cartoons on TV. But I guess if you say so?" At least the superhero metaphor had distracted Lance out of his huff. Maybe it had worked and he had understood Keith after all?

When Keith looked back over at Lance as they reached the line to use the nearest elevator, he didn't look like he was still mad. Not happy, either; more like he was thinking things over, which was good as far as Keith was concerned.

Eventually, Lance grinned. "Or, if I'm Green Arrow like you said, then you'd be Black Canary. They've waaaayyyyyy made out."

Black Canary? The blonde girl in the the leather jacket? Keith had only remembered her in one episode, but `er was pretty sure it had involved her taking on an entire warehouse of bad guys bare-fisted. "Okay, you say that like it's supposed to be teasing me, but I remember Black Canary and she's a badass, so. I'm gonna take that for the compliment it so clearly was."

Lance actually laughed, slinging an arm around Keith's shoulders. "You just can't let me stay mad at you, can you, Pretty Bird?"

They only had a few hours of free time in between dinner and the round of evening training Allura had scheduled for them, and Keith would normally spend that extra time on the training deck warming up before the others got there to join him. Tonight, however, Keith figured he should probably make sure he and Lance were really okay, and followed the other paladin back to his room for… well. Cuddling, mainly.

They were once again tangled on Lance's bed, Keith settled in between Lance's knees with his back to him so that Lance could play with his hair. For all that he insulted the way it looked Lance certainly did seem to love Keith's hair anyway, considering he was always getting his hands on it at every available opportunity. Not that Keith really minded, if he was going to be perfectly honest. Since Keith had never had parents and always cut his own hair, he'd never had anyone touch his hair pretty much period until Lance. He didn't know if it was just the lack of exposure but the action always felt outrageously intimate, every little touch still capable of sending shivers down his spine no matter how much time Lance spent running his hands through it.

Keith, when he wasn't distracted by the feeling of Lance's fingernails dragging softly against his scalp, was playing with his phone. Not Keith's phone - he only ever had a drugstore burner and he hadn't brought that into space with him. But Lance had had his on him, and so Keith was messing around with it now while Lance idly worked his hair into braids.

Lance didn't actually have all that much on his phone, Keith soon realized. There were a couple of games but less photos than he'd have expected, and to his utter astonishment there only seemed to be about sixteen songs on there. Most likely, everything was stored somewhere else like a laptop or harddrive somewhere back on Earth.

What he found in his photos seemed to all be recent as well. There were a couple of pictures of people that had to be Lance's family, but for the most part all of the pictures were from and of the Garrison and people in it. The most recent photos of all were even form here in space, but those were all familiar to Keith by now because at some point Lance had found a way to print some of them out so that he could cover the walls of his room with pictures of planets they've been to and people they've met. None of these older pictures were decorating his walls, though - Keith had a feeling it was because being surrounded by things from Earth would just make him homesick - and so Keith had never seen any of the photos going further back. There were a lot of pictures of students, ones Keith recognized and ones he didn't, freinds Lance had made all smiling at the camera. He really was good with people, wasn't he? Made friends so easily. Even with Pidge, who still kind of hates Lance.

And then there was a flash of white and pink so startling Keith nearly dropped the phone, it slipping out of his hand as he jolted back harshly against Lance and nearly knocking their heads together. "Whose tits are these?!"

"Huh?!" Lance's cry was sharp with surprise, but it didn't last for long. After just a moment, his tone turned embarrassed and contrite as he answered, "Oh, yeah, uh. That'd be Alyssa." Without bothering to ask, Keith deleted the photo as Lance looked over his shoulder. "Yeah, that's… That's fair. You can delete that. I haven't looked at it in months anyway."

"Oh really now," Keith said flatly. Not that he thought his boyfriend to be a liar, it was just simple reason. A teenage boy lost in space with no internet access has a picture of boobs and hasn't looked at it? He'd have to have been as gay as Keith to resist that. Especially considering they'd only started having sex what, last week?

One of Lance's hands fell to wrap around Keith's torso, settling low on his stomach. "Yeah, well. A while back I realized I couldn't quite remember what her face looked like anymore, and then it was just kind of creepy to look at it, you know? Since the picture's uh. Neck down and all."

Which as far as answers went was probably a fair one. Keith still shifted uncomfortably in Lance's embrace. "Why didn't you just delete it right then?"

"Well, I mean, it was a gift, you know? When a girl sends you a naked picture she's like, honoring you with the privilege of gazing upon her loveliness. It would have been rude to just throw it out."

"Well, I already deleted it."

"Which is fine!" Lance insisted, voice high. "You're my current boyfriend, so you definitely have the right to do that without disrespecting anybody. So. That's that." His other hand dropped to join the first around Keith's waist, pulling him to Lance's chest like he was afraid Keith would fly away if he wasn't being held down.

The weird tone to Lance's voice still left Keith unsettled, but he supposed it was all over and done with at this point. And finally Keith realized that maybe what had unsettled him was one odd fact. "Who is Alyssa? You said you've only had three girlfriends, and I remember their names were Priya, Monique and Ann."

"Annette, yeah." Lance agreed. "Alyssa was never my girlfriend, actually. She was a friend of Gwen's, and when she started coming around the house somehow she and I just sort of, um... Yeah," he broke off. "And so we did stuff together a couple of times. But we never went on any kind of dates or particularly talked about anything, it was just one of those… physical sort of deals."

Jesus, Keith had known Lance had more experience than him, but he'd never thought it would even include that kind of experience. He was honestly surprised; he'd thought Lance would be too much of a romantic. Almost against his own will, Keith found himself asking "H- howphysical?"

Lance made an awkward procrastinatey sort of groan from the back of his throat. "Completely? She was… a learning experience." When Keith only grew more tense under his arms, Lance sighed. "She was like, a rebound, you know? Something that needed to happen in order for me to get on with my life." One arm left Keith's side long enough for Lance to scratch the back of his head before settling right back around his side. "Did I ever tell you about my first girlfriend Priya?"

"Sort of," Keith shrugged. She had been mentioned maybe twice? He hadn't really kept track of anything other than her name.

"Hm, that's a no, then." Lance sighed. "Okay. So you know I spent a lot of summers down in Cuba at my Aunt Pilar's house, right? Well one summer when I was… God I don't even remember if I was fourteen or fifteen anymore. But I ended up meeting Priya, who was also there on vacation. And she was only there six weeks before her family went back to God-Knows-Where Michigan." He paused, the fingertip of one hand drawing absent circles on Keith's belly as he lost himself in memories. "It was… The kind of thing that could only be a first love, you know?" His voice was wistful and far away when he started again, the distance curling unpleasantly in Keith's chest. "The kind of whirlwind romance you see in movies that could only happen to fifteen year olds because we were just young enough to be so, so sure we knew what love was. We spent every minute of that summer together, and then on the last day right before she left we, ah. Gave our bodies to each other." He huffed a sigh through his nose, before burying his face in Keith's hair. Without lifting his mouth away from the back of his head, he mumbled. "And then I went home, too. And I was heartbroken and thought I'd never feel like that for anyone again because i was young and stupid and didn't know any better, and… Then there was Alyssa. Just. Right there in our house, whenever my sister had friends over."

"I think I can see where this is going," Keith muttered.

"Yeaaahhhh." Lance agreed, and the long huff of his breath against Keith's neck sent a fresh shiver down his spine. "At first it was exciting, you know? I had only been with a girl one time and had been too nervous to even enjoy it. But with Alyssa, I didn't have to worry about hurting her or embarrassing myself in front of her. She didn't care, she just wanted to get hers, and she wasn't gonna laugh or tell anybody. It was nice." He tipped backwards, taking Keith with him as he leaned against the headboard. "Buuuut, it was also different from Priya in a whole different way. Like, it felt kind of empty, you know? Fun, but… Not really the sort of thing I could go around doing casually."

"What, sex is too intimate to do with just anyone, then?" Keith drawled, not hiding the small bite of sarcasm.

Lance shrugged again, and Keith could feel the motion against his back as Lance's shoulders raised and fell. "As it turns out, yeah. Call me a romantic, I guess. Annette and I never got around to having any sex at all, and we were together nearly two months." He paused. "Not Monique, though. She and I were… that was another whirlwind. But not a good one, probably."

Priya, Alyssa, Annette, Monique… Keith felt kind of ridiculous putting his own name in that list next to them. "You sure have been with a lot of girls for someone who doesn't seem to know the first thing about talking to them," Keith was trying very hard not to sound bitter. Maybe he had no right to rag on Lance for being possessive, after all. Pot, meet jealous, angry little kettle.

"Whaaat?" Lance scoffed, "Not even. I mean, anyone can get a girlfriend, it's not actually hard. There is a very large number of girls who are shy and happy to talk to any guy that talks to them, all you have to do is find one of them and actually listen to what she says for like, five minutes and bam! Instant girlfriend." He finally let go of his python grip around Keith, but only as far as using one hand to go back to playing with his hair. "Besides, I bet you had girls and guys both lining up around the block to get a date with you. You're like, 10/10 hot and good at everything you do."

"I'm definitely not a ten and you have to be at least an eight," Keith denied easily. And if he were really good at everything he might ever have any idea how to act or what to say around his own boyfriend, but Keith probably didn't need to say that. "And while you are right about my looks being what got me the dates I did go on, you're also forgetting the part where I was gay and homeless in Texas."

A beat of silence. "Oh. I suppose."

"Yeah," Keith said, tilting his head to the side and letting his eyes slide shut as Lance's fingers teased the hair above his ear. "There weren't a lot of places where I could even afford to be myself, much less find a boyfriend." A flood of bad memories swirled to the forefront of Keith's mind, going back way too far into the past. Hiding the fact that he was gay became a matter of course even before he knew that's what he was or what the word meant.

One memory in particular stood out, and Keith realized with dismay that it was, in retrospect, his first love. Or at least his first crush, anyway, and it had been even worse than whatever Lance and Monique could have been to each other.

Keith had been twelve years old, maybe even a bit less, and he had just entered a new foster home. Raphael had been a couple of years older than him at fourteen, tall and tan and straight out of juvie. When he'd found out Keith was a fair hand at stealing he'd recruited him into a tentative partnership, helping him knick cigarettes and liquor bottles just because it made Raph smile and call Keith an 'impressive fucking little cabron.'

And then, one day Raphael had left the bathroom door cracked open nearly halfway and Keith had by no means INTENDED to look through there in the first place, but he hadn't known what that odd dry, repetitive thwaping sound was and as he'd passed by, and… And he had been twelve years old and made entirely out of angst and confused hormones, and the boy he liked was touching himself right in front of him. Keith had frozen on the spot. mind screaming at him to leave as his body had rooted itself to the ground in panic and uncomfortable arousal, and at some point while Keith stood there staring Raph had opened his eyes and seen him.

A cold chill ran down his spine as the memory replayed itself, Raph's sharp, angry voice calling him a 'pervy fucking faggot.' How from that point on Keith hadn't even been allowed to look at the older boy for too long without it being an invitation to get his ass kicked, because when he had been asked if he was some kind of homo he hadn't yet known the answer was always 'no,' and never, ever, 'I don't know.' The fact that their foster father had at first intervened on a teenager hitting one of the younger kids until he'd found out why and chosen to stay out of their fights because maybe it would be a good incentive for Keith to learn to straighten himself out. And how his wife had only seen fit to help Keith as far as getting him out of that house as soon as possible.

So, yeah. As far as sexual awakenings went, Keith's was pretty much fuck-awful. Good thing the rest of his life had been equally wretched, or that might have really fucked him up sexually. As it was, Keith figured it was pretty much par for the course.

The silence had grown tense again, Keith stiff and lost in thought in Lance's arms. Lance of course noticed, but also knew better than to say anything considering the sensitive subject matter. Just rubbed a soothing hand up and down the length of his arm, and Keith knew he once again probably owed Lance some backstory.

But not that story. Keith never wanted to share that one with anybody ever. What other times had Keith gotten his ass kicked for being gay?

It was sad how fast Keith could pull up a different memory. He cleared his throat, trying to decide where to begin. "So, um… one of the high schools I went to had an LGBTA Alliance. I went there for a while, and that's how I met the guy I went on that first bad date with." He had never actually made friends with anyone, but it had still been nice just to know he wasn't as alone as he felt. "And so when I got kicked out of that school, I figured if I had found more gays besides me once, it couldn't be that hard to do it again. But the next school was Catholic so that wasn't the first place to go looking, and all I could wind up coming up with for ideas was the nearest gay bar."

"Oh, dear."

"It's not… I never actually went inside," Keith explained. "I was like sixteen and never could have passed for old enough to get in even if I'd wanted to. I just…" He trailed off, surprised to find his throat going tight from emotion even after none of this mattered anymore. "I was lonely, and desperate for someone to talk to and I ended up just… hanging out in the parking lot outside pretending I smoked cigarettes in the hopes that someone would ask to bum one off me."

"Jesus," Lance cursed against the back of his hair, although Keith couldn't guess why considering he hadn't gotten to the bad part yet.

"So, at some point this really beautiful woman comes out of the bar and starts walking home. But the bar is right next to an all-night gas station, and a couple of douchey guys come out of there in time to meet her in the street. And they start hitting on her, and she tried to brush them off up until the point where they noticed she had an adam's apple, and then it turns into harassing her instead." Insane accusations about trying to trick men that still made Keith angry just to think about.

"And you… decided it was your business, then, am i right?"

Keith nodded, the motion brushing the ends of his hair against Lance's face. "Yeah, it was not a smart move, tactically. The guys were both around six feet tall and I was even skinnier than I am now, with Tangerine was wearing five-inch stilettos and a pleather miniskirt. We didn't stand a chance."

"Oh my god, Keith!" Lance's cry was appropriately horrified, and the renewed grip around Keith's waist went from python to anaconda.

"I ended up with… three bruised ribs and a shattered hand, I think it was?"

"How can you say that so casually?" Lance whined, burying his face against the back of Keith's neck. "You can just count off bruised ribs from a gay bashing like it wasn't even a big deal!"

A big deal, maybe, but… "Well, as far as fights I've been in go, that was actually one of the more justified ones." Most of Keith's battles had been more for the sake of standing up for himself, but at least this had been one of the few times he'd ever fought for someone else's sake. He could still remember the broken tear-choked voice she'd used to tell him to lie still on his back to keep his breathing steady, the sensation of long orange wig hairs tickling against his face as she hovered overhead and waited with him for the ambulance to show up.

Keith may not have ever had a home on Earth and he certainly had no family to fight for, but… When it came to making sure this war never got far enough to touch their planet, Keith had his own motivations. And maybe it didn't carry the need and conviction the other paladins reasons did, but he had already figured out who he wanted to defend. Kind people like Tangerine and Louisa Jeffries from ninth grade. People who didn't have anyone else that would fight for them. People like Mr. Palmer from the apartment two doors down, who everyone thought was a pedophile just because he was gay but had let Keith housesit for his cats when he went on trips out of town. Even though if anyone had found out he was leaving a fourteen year old little twink like Keith stay there it would probably enough to get him arrested just for that alone, no matter that they'd never both been in the apartment at the same time. Keith may not be able to do anything for them now, but the least he could do was try to keep their stupid planet safe so they could live their lives.

"Actually, come to think of it, that was the last incident before I got sent to the Garrison," Keith said almost conversationally, hoping a change in subject would break the tension. "Since I didn't have a guardian to send the medical bills to and was still a minor, I sort of ended up pretty much being owned by the government."

"How cheerful," Lance said flatly from the back of Keith's neck. "Is there any part of your life that hasn't been absolutely terrible?"

Keith thought about that for a moment. "Well, first I met Shiro," who then died in space leaving Keith alone and half-crazy in the desert. Keith was going to have to do better than that if he wanted to lighten the mood. "...Uh. And I feel like things have been on a real upswing since I got to space." That was more the direction he'd been trying to take that thought. "I have friends now, for one." He bit his lip, hesitating for a moment before shyly continuing, "And, uh… As far as first boyfriends go, I feel like I've gotten… pretty lucky." Pressed right up against his chest like this Keith could feel it when Lance's heartbeat stuttered for a moment at that, and he let a tiny smile curl his lips. With a bit more confidence to lower his voice into what he hoped was a seductive sort of tease, he added, "And even though there are a lot of ways to have really bad gay sex, somehow my first time ended up being kind of amazing, so. There's that."

Lance's hand snaked its way across the bed to find his, curling their fingers together. Smiling directly against Keith's neck, Lance agreed, "Yeah, I… thought it was pretty amazing, too."

Keith squeezed Lance's hand. Having finally gotten the mood back to cuddly instead of tragic backstory-full, Keith let himself relax back into Lance's hold again, finally noticing the phone still in his own hand. It had timed out while they'd been talking, returning to the default lock screen of a picture of Lance grinning at a confused Keith as he pressed their faces together for a selfie. And, to spite Keith's best efforts to enjoy their time together, couldn't fight the passing thought when he saw it wondering if someday there'd be a new girl deleting pictures of Keith off this very phone, and having every right to do so. It unsettled him all the way until evening training

It was hours later and Keith was back in his own room after evening training, freshly showered and feeling lighter than he had since he'd had Inara's controls thrumming under his fingers. They'd moved up to fighting against more than one droid, the melee fights Keith preferred and they were more likely to run into for a while yet anyway, and their teamwork was even finally improving. Not good enough to be able to all focus on one enemy without falling into each other, but at least now no one was worried Lance was going to shoot their back or about tripping over Pidge anymore.

He smiled to himself as he slipped into his pajamas, sliding his knife from his belt to its resting place under his pillow. Plus, since Keith had known about Lance wearing himself out earlier that day with target practice, he'd been able to predict how slow he was moving and had been able to match his pace, providing the cover necessary for Lance to line up his shots. And yeah, half of them he still missed, but now the ones that did hit were always dead-on target and that certainly wasn't for nothing. Really, at this rate it wouldn't be long until every shot Lance took could be relied on to be perfect.

Keith was just trying to decide if he was worn out enough to go to bed yet or if he needed to do some push-ups first when there was a knock at his door. Which… was odd, because it was actually fairly late at this point.

When he opened the door it was Lance on the other side, shoulders stooped and eyes a little wild. Keith wasn't quite sure if he was concerned, asking, "Lance? Is something wrong?"

Lance jerked a little like the question surprised him, awkwardly scratching at the back of his head. "No, nothing, um. Everything's fine." He looked away, eyes averted down the hallway. "Look, can I come in?"

"Sure," Keith stepped out of the way of his door, allowing Lance inside after him. He had meant to sit on the bed, assuming Lance was here for them to talk about something, but he was stopped by a hand around his wrist as Lance turned him to face each other eye to eye. "Lance?"

Face to face like this Keith could properly see the expression on Lance's face, and just as he was thinking he knew the particular gleam lighting up those blue eyes Lance was pushing Keith against the wall in a kiss that drove straight past being just forceful to dive into predatory. Even having recognized the blatant lust coloring Lance's face Keith didn't have time to be anything except surprised at first, stiffening as his shoulders hit the wall and Lance used the gasp that broke out of Keith's mouth as an opportunity to shove his tongue inside.

Lance sucked Keith's tongue into his mouth harshly, barley giving Keith time or opportunity to actually like, participate in this kiss at all. For some reason Keith found himself relaxing anyway, arm curling around Lance's lower back to drag their bodies closer together as soon as he realized if he kept just standing there dumbfounded there was a chance Lance might stop . He had no idea what was going on, but when Lance used one hand to pin Keith to the wall by the hip while the other didn't just tangle into his hair but straight up fisted it tight enough for Keith to feel the sharp pull against his scalp he decided that whatever was up with Lance Keith was TOTALLY onboard for. This was… Jesus, this was hot.

Lance's teeth scraped against the top of Keith's tongue before biting down, and Keith choked on a moan. He tried to put his hand to Lance's shoulder to push him back a little and maybe slow things down a bit, but even that was met with teeth as Lance bit at his bottom lip even while Keith pulled away from the kiss. Lance didn't go very far and Keith didn't try to make him, just let Lance move onto his neck with more violent kisses as he gasped out, "L-lance," in a voice that was already way too unsteady.

That wicked tongue laved at Keith's pulse point, mapping out the place for Lance to sink his teeth in and sucking so hard Keith almost wondered if he wasn't actually trying to drink blood out of him, after all. He jolted, back arching off the wall enough for Lance's hand to slip from his hip around to his backside to grope himself a handful of Keith's ass. Holy SHIT, he wasn't holding **anything** back, was he? Just barging into Keith's room and taking what he wanted, going at Keith like his body was all his to play with. Theoretically, being pushed around like this should have made Keith's skin crawl, but… Fucking hell, he guessed on occasion, if it was Lance specifically? Good fucking christ, this was sexy. His usually gentle Lance, so good at warming Keith up slowly like a teakettle set to boil, slamming in here and heating Keith up so fast it was like being thrown right into a fire. Keith's toes curled and his fingers fisted in Lance's shirt. Get a man who can do both, right? Fuck.

Still, this was out of character enough that Keith was still a bit worried this might actually be weird, like Lance trying to start a fight or something. "Lance," he croaked. Clearing his throat to make sure his voice came out less wrecked this time, Keith tried again. "Lance, baby, hold up." There was a moan against his throat, at which point it occurred to Keith that might be because he had accidentally just called Lance 'baby,' because apparently terrible nicknames rub off on a person. He ignored it, pushing on to ask "What's gotten into you?" Lance changed his grip on Keith's ass, squeezing hard enough to probably leave bruises and making Keith shudder a little in Lance's embrace. "...Because if you're hopped on on some alien aphrodisiac I think we should move this to the med bay."

Lance finally removed himself from Keith's neck, apparently satisfied with the array of angry red bite marks he'd littered the pale skin of his throat with. "M'not high," he said against Keith's skin, voice low and gravelly from want. "I'm here because of you, " the words were hissed almost like an accusation, sharp and low into Keith's ear.

Suddenly Keith was being spun around, and he had to catch himself with arms to stop his face from being slammed into the wall. Lance was on him again in an instant, pressing himself to Keith's back and pinning him there, and Keith was glad he'd gotten his arms in front of his face because at least this way he could hide his moans by biting into his own forearm if he needed to. Before that thought was even processed Lance was talking again, harshly whispering "I was in bed trying to sleep," into Keith's ear, the almost angry edge to the words sending another hot shiver down the length of Keith's spine. Lance rocked his hips, grinding his - oh jesus fuckign christ he was hard, Lance was already hard and his cock was pressing in between the cheeks of Keith's ass through the soft fabric of pajama pants and Keith felt himself join him in that state, his own dick rapidly growing stiff in his tightening underwear. "But no matter how much I tried to ignore it, I could still smell you," he rolled his hips again, rubbing his cock into Keith's ass with so much force Keith could feel the head press hard against his hole as it passed by and that bit of teasing friction really **did** make him moan, low and shaky against the wall. "Smell your hair on my pillow from when you snuck into my bed this morning," he continued, and also continued that harsh sexy grind against Keith's ass. His voice was low, so low it might not have been audible if he hadn't been biting the words directly into Keith's ear, " And your jizz soaked into my mattress ."

Keith shuddered, and the movement of his body shaking against Lance's was so nice he felt his own hips start to rock back to meet Lance's. "M-my…"

Lance stopped moving, hands like vices around Keith's hips and weight heavy against Keith as he kept him pressed to the wall. "What, don't you remember how you came all over my bedsheets last night?"

Fire. Keith was on fire and he was dying and all he could do was just stand there and whimper as Lance groaned into his ear. "...And so it occurred to me," he continued, fingers sliding into the waistband of Keith's pants and underwear and pulling down . "Why the fuck was I jerking off alone in my room when the person who did this to me was in the next hallway over?"

"Okay," Keith squeaked out as he felt Lance pull just far enough away to drop to his knees behind Keith and oooooh fuck what was he doing down there? Weakly, he babbled on, "Okay, that makes sense, then," as Lance directed his legs to spread apart as much as they could with his pants and underwear still bunched at his knees.

The first touch to the soft insides of the top of Keith's thighs was almost tender, Lance's fingers dancing up and down against his skin for a moment before he planted the first messy, open-mouthed kiss. He continued in that fashion, sucking and nibbling at the sensitive flesh between Keith's legs before he was licking him, laving long wet stripes up and down every inch of skin he could taste as Keith shuddered and held himself up with wall, even letting another choked whimper escape when Lance's tongue went so far as to lick at Keith's perineum and the sensitive underside of his sac.

And then Lance was standing up again, and Keith could hear the rustle of fabric as much as felt it against his back as Lance pulled himself out of his own pants and pressed his bare, leaking cock against Keith's naked ass. This time when Lance spoke his voice sounded more desperate than sharp, mouthing at Keith's bruised neck and telling - not asking, but telling and fuck if that wasn't its own kind of hot - "Hey, lend me your body. I'm gonna fuck your thighs for a minute."

Keith groaned and his whole body twitched, starting from his dick. "Kay," he agreed obligingly, and his traitorous body proved it was at least capable of moving as far as changing his footing to bring his legs back together to give Lance a nice, tight place to slip his cock into, popping his hips up invitingly while he was at it. Breath heavy and fast in his pounding chest, Keith reiterated. "Okay, go ahead," in a voice he barely recognized as his own.

Lance didn't take up the offer right away, taking an indulgent moment to grind up in between Keith's ass cheeks again now that there were no clothes separating them. And fuck fuck fuck was that ever not good, because Keith could feel it even more pronounced when the head of Lance's cock brushed past his twitching entrance and the only thing Keith could think when he did was how easy it would be to take Lance inside himself right now and Keith had had no idea how much he wanted it but now he was so, so genuinely tempted to tell Lance to skip over fucking his thighs and just put it in. Somehow the words "Oh god, come on, fuck me, " really did end up escaping his mouth, but Lance had no way of knowing how literally Keith actually meant that and instead pushed his dick into the waiting resistance of Keith's tense, spit-slicked thighs.

Keith bit his lip but Lance's moan was more than loud enough to fill the waiting silence, shaky and broken against Keith's back. Keith tried to squeeze his legs together tighter, squirming against the hard shaft trapped between his soft thighs. Everything between Keith's legs right now was wet and hot and way too sensitive and he shouldn't be getting as much from this as he was but God he liked Lance's cock so much, he could feel how hard Lance was for him and then he started to move , sliding in and out of the waiting space between Keith's legs and even though his thighs weren't sensitive enough to be able to like, get off on this or anything it didn't even MATTER because this was like. Lance's pure, raw sexuality he was laying on Keith here and Keith wanted every second of it.

Lance tried to move slowly at first, fucking Keith's thighs in long, smooth strokes that just left them both shaking and needy. The attempt at gentility didn't last long, and soon Lance was moving against Keith faster and harder, hips pressed right up hard against Keith's ass and breath panting hot and fast against his neck as he fucked himself in between Keith's too-willing thighs hard enough to rock them both against the wall, the only barrier stopping it from slamming into Keith's face being the forearm he was currently, indeed, biting into. Instinctively Keith started to move his own hips, rolling back against Lance in a desperate attempt to somehow get more his cock, slipping it from it's track mid-thigh up to his groin so that now every stroke was rubbing against Keith's balls and the underside of his own dick and even biting his own arm wasn't enough to completely muffle the loud, obscene moan that tore its way out of him.

The fingers digging into his hips turned bruising, and even though it was getting hard to concentrate on squeezing his thighs together the way Lance groaned "Fuck, Keith, feel so good," was more than enough motivation to stay as tense as possible for him. Wanted to make Lance feel good, wanted to keep that hard cock trapped between his legs so tight Lance wouldn't even be able to pull away if he wanted to. "Shit, can't believe the noises you're making," Lance continued, voice choked and broken with lust. "Wish I was inside so badly right now."

"Nnngggaa," What was that? Was that a noise that came out of Keith just now? It couldn't have been. And even if it was there wasn't time for it to matter - Lance's words were somewhere around the sexiest thing Keith had ever heard, had sent a shiver down his spine and even made his ass clench and twitch with the want of being filled. He swallowed a shaky breath of air, surprising himself with how confident his words sounded when he pulled away from his arm to goad, "Y-yeah? You wanna fuck me?"

" Fuck ," Lance swore sharply, his thrusts against Keith growing faster and less steady. " Fuck you, Keith, you know I do." He nosed some of Keith's hair aside to get to the back of his neck, into which he bit the next words directly. "Like you don't already know how often I think about bending you over."

Keith whimpered a little, and he couldn't even muffle it in his arm anymore because now that's where his forehead was buried to brace himself where he was currently being slammed against the fucking wall . The weight of Lance's body against his back, the rhythmic bounce of their bodies against each other from the force of his pounding hips, the shallow breaths panting directly into Keith;'s ear… Jesus, he was… Keith was being fucked against a wall right now. This is what it feels like to be fucked against a wall. Yet another thing he hadn't been aware he really, really wanted in his life, but here he was. Here he was and there Lance was, all force and unexpected dominance and Keith could feel how his breath and hips had both started to stutter and speed up which meant he was about to come because of Keith, just from the memory of last night and the heat of his thighs and everything was awesome right now. "Bend me over, huh?" He gasped shakily against the wall, "You mean, kinda like you're doing now?"

Lance wasn't gentle when he came, either, sinking his teeth down hard into the yet-unmarred skin of the nape of Keith's neck. He kept moving even after the first hot splatter of come hit Keith's thighs, fucking himself against Keith's legs in short, shaky thrusts to the sound of a chorus of moans from both of them.

There was a moment where they stayed like that, Lance's weight pinning a still-squirming Keith to the wall while the grip on his hips finally slackened. When he stepped away Keith discovered that his legs were no longer capable of bearing his weight as he slid gracelessly to the floor in a messy, fucked-out heap.

He rested his forehead against the wall as he caught his breath, idly trying to decide if he should start jerking himself off right there on the floor or if he had the patience to make Lance do it for him. Behind him, he could hear his boyfriend stumbling back a few steps and swearing "Jesus christ, look at what a mess you are," in tone that sounded for some reason less sexy now than perhaps genuinely amazed. "What the fuck did I just d o? A-are... are you alright?"

"No," Keith said lowly against the wall, because he was not okay. He was aching hard and shaking on the floor and for some reason right now Lance was still talking? Instead of touching him? Unacceptable.

"Shit," Lance's voice sounded genuinely regretful for some reason, apologizing, "Shit, Keith, I'm so sorry…"

Keith didn't let him finish or even bother wondering what on earth he was sorry for, having stood up in order to launch himself at his boyfriend and tackle him to the bed in needy kiss. Lance caught him with a surprised "Hmpf!" thumping to land sitting on the bed as Keith crawled into his lap, rubbing his straining erection against Lance's leg meaningfully as he conquered Lance's mouth via kiss.

"Oh," his voice was high in understanding now, and Lance ran his hands up and down Keith's sides softly. "Right, sorry." He broke the kiss to murmur, "Slow down, baby, let me take care of you."

"Don't call me that," Keith complained even as Lance turned them both around to spread Keith out over the bed on his back. Keith took Lance with him, one arm looped around his neck keeping him close enough to still feel his breath against his lips. "I hate that, it's the worst one."

Lance laughed, having to stop to bury chuckles against Keith's neck as he pulled Keith's legs up high to wrap around Lance's waist. "Okay, sweetie, whatever you say."

Keith just rolled his hips up seekingly as an answer, pulling Lance into another kiss that Lance kept far too gentle. For all Keith tried to get things rolling again with the almost desperate jerk of his hips, Lance seemed to refuse to pick up the pace, lazily pawing at Keith keeping the kiss languid until Keith finally had to break it to whine "C'mon Lance, I'm already so hard for you."

Lance shuddered, laying a soft kiss to one of the still-sore bite marks he'd left on Keith's neck. "Yeah, all right. Tell me what you want, honey," He rolled his hips down to meet Keith's. "Tell me what to do to get you off."

Keith grabbed one of Lance's hands from where it drawing light circles on Keith's side. Looked his boyfriend straight and deliberately in the eye, and rumbled "I want you to put your fingers inside me, you fucking tease." Lance's eyes widened, but he didn't shudder between Keith's legs until Keith brought their joined hands up to suck two of Lance's fingers into his mouth.

" Fuck. Fuck, alright, I got you." Lance let Keith keep sucking on his fingers even as he shuffled around, leaning back far enough to to use his free hand to yank at his pants and underwear enough for Keith to get one leg out. Instead of wrapping it back around Lance's waist Keith flung his leg high over Lance's shoulder, opening himself up to exposure as he let Lance's hand slide free from his lips.

Yet still his lover persisted in his wretched teasing, because even when he had a wet finger pressed directly against the tight rim of Keith's entrance he only rubbed gentle circles around the oversensitive ring of muscle that left Keith clenching his eyes shut and trying to stop his hips from trying to fuck down onto Lance's finger himself. "Come on, " Keith's voice was a strained whine, shaking like the rest of his body. "Come on, Lance, I know what I want."

Finally, the tip of his finger pushed inside, and the hard strain of the intrusion stretching the taught muscles of his rim open around it as it forced it way inside was so, so fucking perfect after he'd been wanting it so badly that Keith soon felt the leak of precome fall from his aching cock to splatter onto his own belly. "Oh god yes, come on." Squirmed around the tip of Lance's finger, loving the way it felt catching against the sensitive insides but knowing there was still so much he could take . "God, come on, give me more."

Lance buried another chuckle against Keith's collarbone even as he complied and slipped more of his middle finger inside. "You're still so bossy ," he laughed, and Keith couldn't even be mad because he was going deeper and Keith's insides were twitching and trying to suck more of him in and he just needed this so fucking bad, you don't even understand. "I fucking love it." It stung a bit since spit was not in fact a proper lubricant, but Lance got the whole of his finger inside and fuck it was so, so worth the wait and trouble to get here because he could feel how much longer Lance's finger was than his own, reaching places he'd never gotten to by himself and Keith could just about die now. "Love how you feel inside, too, holy shit, dude."

Keith's eyes rolled to the back of his head, but not in the fun way. "And don't call me 'dude' when we're having sex ." He wiggled his hips, revelling in the delicious friction. "Just call me by my name and start banging me, already."

"Sorry," Lance's voice was still more giggling than contrite but at least he started moving his finger, and just because he was so good at surprising Keith instead of drawing it out to fuck back inside he just started to twist and hook the digit to rub against every inch of Keith's insides. Keith arched his back, a moan twisting its way out of his throat and his fingers digging harshly into the skin of Lance's shoulder.

God jesus fuck , was Keith ever losing his shit right now. After the tease of Lance's tongue inside him last night Keith had been craving this, something thick and solid and Lance filling him up was just too sweet, and he was so glad he hadn't just jerked himself off on the floor because even after all the drawn-out waiting this just exactly what Keith wanted and needed. And then Lance did draw back, slipping his finger halfway out and then fucking it back inside in long smooth strokes that had Keith just about wailing, barely aware of the vibration of his voice leaving his throat or the sound of the words "Oh, fuck, yes, " as they echoed around the room in favor of concentrating on that slide.

"Shit, Keith, you're too…" Lance's voice was a bit broken again, too, and somehow that DID register with Keith, probably because of how sexy it was. "You're too tight, I can't…" It did sting a bit, and the slight twinge of pain was starting to grow the more vigorous his motions got but it was hardly any kind of deterrent for Keith at this point. Lance seemed to disagree, pulling out entirely with a mutter "Need to get you wetter," when Keith tried to protest his withdraw.

Instead of the sound of spitting like he'd expected Keith felt warm fingers swiping over his dirty thighs, and when Lance pushed two of his fingers inside with a wet slide Keith realized that what he was using to ease his way inside was nothing other than Lance's own come. His thin whine turned into a scream when this time Lance didn't bother to play gentle, going straight back to plunging his fingers quickly in and out of Keith's shuddering, greedy heat at a rate that had his toes curling.

Keith was definitely screaming now, or whining or moaning or begging, he didn't even know. All he knew was somewhere in the room was the sound of his own voice breaking with his heaving breath, the heat and weight and smell of his Lance between his legs, and everything else was wound right down at the bottom of his spine where he couldn't even feel the hardness of his own dick over the glorious solid heat of Lance's fingers flickering skillfully inside of him. Fuck. Fuck, his two fingers felt so much bigger than Keith's, longer and a bit thicker and moving so, so well, hooking a little bit at his insides at the deepest part of every stroke and God he'd been wanting this so badly . Needed it so badly, needed to be fucked hard into his mattress and made a mess out of and this was so close to getting that, right now it was so easy to imagine this was Lance's cock and not his fingers - oh god, especially since that was Lance's come inside of him right now, he was never gonna get over that - and just that thought was so hot Keith had riled himself up nearly to coming himself.

Especially with the sensory memory of only a few minutes before. The way Lance felt draped against his back, the fingers digging into his hips as Lance had held him down and pounded him into the door… If Keith thought about that right now when he was already full of Lance's fingers so hot and perfect and huge inside him as he opened Keith up, it was like putting together the pieces of a perfect fantasy of getting truly, properly fucked right now god, did Keith ever like that.

And then, just because he had forgotten it even existed, that's when the tip of Lance's middle finger finally brushed up against Keith's prostate. Keith flailed ridiculously, the arm he'd had twisted into the bedsheets jerking into the air to seek out Lance's head for him to yank on short hair while he heard his own voice shout "There, there, right there! " Lance obliged with a moan of his own, seeking out that spot again and knowing he'd found it by the telling frantic jerk of Keith's hips and desperate screams.

Lance kept his fingers shoved in deep after that, one long finger flickering against Keith's prostate while his forefinger continued to stoke at Keith's insides as much as they could, mostly ending up curving down to hook at the inside of Keith's rim which was like an extra little added bonus of pleasure in between Keith's mind being totally blow n. Where earlier it had been a desperate chase to try to get off now it was the opposite, and Keith had to bite his lip and hold his breath to try to fight off the impending flood of orgasm because this was all too good and too perfect and he wanted it to last, wanted to revel here in bed under Lance's hands and be fucked for days.

Lance seemed to agree, because for a while now he'd been babbling mindless praise neither of them really heard. Telling Keith how sexy he was, how soft he felt inside, how he was twitching around Lance's fingers like he was trying to swallow him whole and he couldn't wait to someday be inside him, find the time to spread Keith out nice and slow and open him up for Lance's cock and Keith couldn't listen to that kind of shit right now, not when he was trying **not** to come.

His efforts were quite in vain, though. Somewhere in his ramblings Lance had started to say Keith's name, low and breathy with renewed lust and Keith made the mistake of opening his eyes when he heard it, and… And there Lance was. Hovering above him with that hot look in his eye again, staring at Keith like he was the whole universe and there was nothing in the world that could have stopped Keith from coming right then. He tried to keep his eyes open to keep looking at Lance but they just ended up rolling into the back of his head, vision blurring out and semen spilling so hard from his cock it actually shot all the way to hit his chin while the rest of Keith's body convulsed and shook, turning from hot iron to jelly in moments around Lance's fingers.

He was still shaking even as he came down back to reality, too sensitive after coming so hard and flailing a tired arm out to grab Lance's wrist and stop him where he was still trying to softly paw at Keith's insides. Lance fell forward on top of him and Keith embraced it, wrapping his arms around Lance's back as Keith panted into his shoulder, trying to catch his lost breath.

Lance sat up after a minute or two, untangling himself from where Keith had all four limbs wrapped lazily around him like a sloth slining to a tree. Keith stayed where he was, because his bed was warm and his brain was cotton and his spine probably didn't work right now anyway, barley hearing it through his sleepy post orgasmic lull when Lance awkwardly cleared his throat to say. "Uh... Well that was kind of weird, huh?"

Keith just hummed, letting his eyes drift closed and his head fall to the side. "Def'nit'ly a s'prise," he slurred into his pillow. A good, great wonderful surprise that had made Keith come so hard he still hadn't come out of his sex coma yet.

"Um. should I like... " Lance hesitated. "Do you want a towel, or…" he trailed off, and Keith absently wondered if it was because he was waiting for a response. "Are you awake?"

"Hmmm?" Keith hummed, nuzzling further into his pillow. Lance was doing that talking thing again, why was he doing this? Now would be such a perfect time for cuddles, too! This man was so useless. Except for the part where he'd just made Keith come so hard he still hadn't stopped shaking yet.

"Should I…" Lance's voice was still weird in that unidentifiable way. "I'm just. Gonna go now."

"Huh?" Keith asked groggily, feeling the bed shift as Lance's weight left it. Wait, what? He was leaving? After all of last night's hullaballoo about Keith not sneaking out after sex? Keith's eyebrows furrowed together, and he forced his spine and arms to function enough to push himself into a sitting position. He was too slow, though, only catching sight of Lance's back as it passed through his doorway and the white door slide closed behind him while Keith stared dumbfounded.

Well. okay. Maybe that had been weird, after all? He frowned, falling back onto his bed and pulling his skewed shirt the rest of the way off, using it to wipe off the jizz before letting it fall ignored to the floor. Whatever, he'd worry about it later. It wasn't worth ruining the afterglow Keith was still basking in right now.

He sighed, inhaling and releasing a long, slow sigh of breath as he relaxed into the warm spot they'd worn into his mattress. And realized, with a bit of an ironic smile, that he could still smell Lance in his room, too.

(3.) "For all your cooking, cleaning, and sex lube needs! All natural fresh pressed, and only fifteen gac per quart jug! You buy here, you buy only the best! Best in Concordia, best in Galaxy! Come buy paopu oil, it clean your greasy knife and grease your dirty wife!"

(4.) It was. The first time it had happened Lance managed to provoke Shiro into calling him a "cock-sucking little pissant fuckboy," at which point Keith, and indeed the rest of the room, had at first all stared at him in wide-eyed surprise for a moment before they all descended into laughter almost as one. Minus Shiro, of course.


	4. To Doubt

Chapter 6: To Doubt

Chapter Text

It had been well over a week by both human and Elpesian standards, and Keith was beginning to think he was going to lose his shit. Never since the moment he stranded himself in a Texan desert had Keith felt as useless as this mission made him feel, and his inability to take out his frustration on any Galra, or even take Red out of her hangar to just fly for the sake of flying was only adding to his stress. It was all he could do not to lash out and pick fights in Concordia, making him completely worthless in the efforts of gathering information. He just… He sucked with people. He hated them all and he was suspicious of everyone and he couldn't even TALK to the customers, much less lure them into a conversation long enough to learn anything.

Fortunately, that's what they had literally everyone else for. Even Pidge, who also hated people, was doing leagues better than Keith. Even if only because she seemed to have accidentally joined a street gang, but at least she'd figured out how the local currency worked in the process and was now keeping all of the books for the store. Of course, as for what else they'd managed to learn in their time here, the results were disappointing. Especially because the one fact they were picking up was that Keith was apparently right from the get go and the Merchant's Guild was a big fucking organized crime empire. It had to be, because there was no way in seven hells a profitable organization would have the city's entire police force as a "subdivision." Police, generally speaking, were supposed to be run by the government, as Keith understood it. Seemed like the cops being a wing of the MGE would cause a lot of… conflict of interest, legally speaking.

Naturally, this information was doing wonders for Keith's paranoia, making the need to constantly interact with strangers all the more grating on every last hair of Keith's nerves.

And none of any of that was even the worst part. The WORST part of every day had somehow become going home. He wasn't sure why or over what, but it seemed like he and Lance might still be fighting, after all. Except there wasn't any anger as much as just this weird awkward tension that had risen between them that Keith could not for the life of him figure out the source of, but it had managed to turn the usually soft and relaxing silences between them stiff and uncomfortable, to the point where Keith was just starting to give up all together and spend the little free time they now had locked in the training room trying to work off some of the extreme levels of tension that had become his constant companion.

Okay, so it wasn't a complete mystery, what was wrong between them. Mostly it was, but Keith was aware of the fact that his stress was so bad he was just about back to finding every little thing about his boyfriend grating and irritating. Like, he could deal with the stream of bullshit that comes out of his mouth because he knew it was how Lance compensated for his insecurities. So even though every single thing Lance said when there was more than two people in the room had started to annoy him to no end, Keith was at least aware that that was his own problem and not actually his boyfriend's fault. No, the actual problem was… Probably, due to Keith's anxiety, come to think of it.

The actual problem was that Lance, despite the fact that they were barely talking to each other, was still managing to hover and needle at Keith like a mother hen. Just... It was stupid, that it was bothering Keith so much, but Lance was constantly asking about where he was going or what he was doing or what he had done that day while they were apart, and Keith was pretty sure that was normal behavior for people who cared about each other but he just wasn't used to that sort of attention, okay? It was starting to feel invasive, like he couldn't keep anything to himself without Lance asking about it, and for some reason his brain's reaction to feeling smothered was to try to retreat at all costs. So somehow, Keith had wound up sneaking through the castle at odd hours in hopes that no one would see him, not just Lance, because the idea of anyone in the entire universe knowing where he was at any given moment had become the worst pressure imaginable.

That… made it sound like he was avoiding Lance. He wasn't, not actually . They were still right on top of each other for meals and training, apparently both desperate to pretend things were normal and force conversation every morning at breakfast. They were even still trying to spend their free time together… Or. At least , had been, until…

So. a couple of nights ago Keith had suggested they watch a movie together, figuring that it wouldn't matter that they suddenly couldn't think of anything to say to one another if they were absorbed in the movie and maybe they could get a little cuddling in. He was never a person who had been good at relying on words, so to Keith the physical contact with his boyfriend was sort of… grounding. Helped him affirm their place with each other, maybe. And at first everything was even going okay, and they settled onto the couch and got into the movie, which Keith was almost depressed to report were all becoming easier to understand as the Paladins unwittingly continued to immerse themselves in ancient Altean culture to the point where they were actually starting to get some of the jokes. And as usual they soon ended up all kinds of sprawled on top of each other, comfortable in each other's arms like normal and Keith had been feeling so nice, warm from the inside out in that newly familiar way…

Which is of course the point where he apparently got greedy and did something stupid. He hadn't THOUGHT it was stupid, not at the time. He still wasn't sure why it was the wrong move, but when he'd slid his hand up Lance's thigh towards his crotch in an attempt to start something to get a little stress relief in the fun way, hoping a little intimacy would help bring them together... Lance hadn't reacted well. Well, his body had reacted well, but that had hardly stopped him from pushing Keith off of him. Too determined to just flee in humiliation, they'd wound up spending the rest of the movie on opposite ends of the couch stewing in a worse awkwardness than ever.

He wouldn't have been able to explain even if he'd wanted, but the rejection hurt more than Keith would ever admit. If words were failing, and Lance didn't want him enough to let Keith use their bodies to communicate instead, then he just… didn't know what else to do.

So that was also adding to Keith's tension. The horniness, that is. He wasn't sure if having sex two nights in a row and then not at all for a week and a half was normal, but it didn't feel that way. Had he been this horny all along, or only since he and Lance had started doing it? He wasn't sure. Plus he couldn't even bring it up to Lance because Keith didn't actually know if there was a problem or not, because they'd only JUST started having sex and didn't have a set 'normal' with each other yet. Not to mention, now he didn't even have the guts to try and make another move anymore, and had no choice but to just… wait for Lance.

So in other words, literally every aspect of Keith's life was currently a disaster. But at least they were shuffling around who was in charge of the stall enough that he and Lance were hardly ever stuck working it together. Things were already bad enough without that torture.

Instead, Keith right now was manning the store with Coran, who was the one currently in charge of talking to customers while Keith sprawled across a comfortable piece of display furniture and plucked absentmindedly at the damnable electric space banjo Lance had assaulted him with a couple of weeks ago because it wasn't like anyone was interested in buying the stupid thing. And of course, mostly as a way to look preoccupied like he wasn't staring down everyone who came near the stall with suspicion like an overwhelmed secret service agent.

"You know," Coran started conversationally after another patron with no information bought absolutely nothing, "that baliset would sound a lot better if it were tuned. Turning it on would probably help as well, of course, but tuning would help a fair bit more."

Keith looked down at the instrument in his hands, wondering if perhaps he were holding it upside down while he was at it. "Don't suppose you know how to tune it?"

Coran looked thoughtful, his moustache twitching as he hummed for a moment before heading towards where all of the rest of the instruments were being displayed. "Well logically, we should have put the tuning fork with the rest of this lot," he said as he rummaged around. "Aha! Here we are!"

It looked enough like a normal tuning fork, but Keith was right not to underestimate it. Coran merely had to plug it into the banjo - er, baliset apparently - for a moment and the instrument hummed in Keith's hands, the strings vibrating under his fingers as they tuned themselves into the correct frequency. When he experimentally plucked at one of them he was surprised to hear the sound was entirely unlike the flaming banjo noises it as producing before, now humming in a strange echoey twang like… Kind of like a banjo being played in a huge empty metal hallway, actually. "Huh, I'll be damned," Keith considered. The stupid thing really COULD play music. Maybe he should tell Lance it hadn't been his fault he'd sounded so bad -

Keith scoffed, annoyed with himself. Plucked determinedly at the strings again to prove he was not thinking about Lance, testing out the different ways to make notes ring from it. Eventually absorbed himself enough in the alien music that it was actually true.

The two of them watched the city move around them for a while. "This city hasn't changed much for ten thousand years having passed," Coran offered conversationally. "Well, s'a bit shinier I s'pose, but the basic sort of… shape and feel is still the same."

Keith watched a pair of aliens that looked a bit like sentient tires roll past, tapping his fingertip idly against the baliset's B string (or the baliset equivalent of a B string, anyway). "You've been here before, then?"

"But of course," Coran confirmed cheerfully. "Like we've been saying, Altea and Elpis have been allies for long generations before Allura and I were around. I visited a fair number of times in my day. And Concordia's always been the best place to throw a party."

"I'll bet," Keith agreed dryly.

Coran laughed. "Come on, now, don't have such a low opinion. I'll have you know many geruda have made fine warriors. Why, one was even a paladin!"

He didn't mean to sound dubious, but Keith couldn't help his raised eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"The Red Paladin, even! A fair bit before my day, but I hear she was quite the firecracker."

His own Lion, even? Wasn't Red supposed to be temperamental? He had been trying not to dismiss the geruda based on their appearance, but it was sort of hard to imagine one of these tiny women wielding the sword of Voltron. "Must have been a real sight."

"Oh, she was that alright," Coran chuckled. "There's only one story about her anyone remembers, but you'll get a real kick out of it, I think. How she died." Keith looked at him, and Coran grinned with delight as having caught Keith's interest.

"Oh, yeah?" He inquired indulgently.

Coran absolutely preened . "Oh, it's a good one!" He crowed in delight. "As the story goes, she was up all alone against an entire enemy battleship with a half-broken Lion. Somehow, she was able to destroy the enemy battler's flying systems, landing them all crashed on a nearby planet together, her Lion useless pinned under the nearly whole ship. She managed to survive the crash, but so did most of the enemy army!"

"How big of an army?" Keith hadn't meant to interrupt to ask.

Coran considered. "Well, it was a Vogon cruiser, so probably a whole flottso worth." Keith had no idea what that meant. He decided not to ask. "Anyway, so there she was, all alone and trapped in a crashed enemy battleship with only her bayard at her side. No one knows for sure what happened on that ship, but we know what they found."

Taking his cue, Keith asked "What'd they find?"

With gravitas, Coran leaned forward, voice dropped low to draw out the tension. "Bodies. Only bodies . Not a single living soul left on board. She had killed the entire surviving Vogon army, single handedly."

Keith blinked. That sounded cool and all, but… "How do you know she killed them and not the crash, then?"

Eyes sparkling, Coran grinned. "Because of the wounds from her bayard carving open their corpses." Which was of course, the most awesome thing he could have said. "And," though it shouldn't have been possible, he managed to make his tone even more dramatic. "When they found her …"

Almost against his will, Keith leaned forward in interest. "When they found her?"

"She still had her spear in her cold, dead hands. Run through the bodies of two enemies and propping her up, so that she stood over a field of corpses even in death. So many holes torn in her her body there shouldn't have been enough left of her to stand in the first place, and a wicked smile still frozen across her blood-soaked face."

"Whoa," Keith breathed. "That might be the coolest thing I've ever heard."

Coran laughed. "Yes, I thought you might enjoy that."

Keith leaned back in his chair again, letting the story soak in. Trying to imagine what might have happened in there, visions of a five foot lizard in paladin's armor stalking through vents and hallways like like a red ghost with bloody footprints and leaving death in her wake. Fuckin' rad . "What was… Do you know her name?"

A thoughtful twitch of orange moustache hairs. "Hm, how was it again? If the gerudas have their family names last, so out of Kara and Vlella she'll have been Kara... Thrace? Yes that's it, Kara Thrace."

Kara Thrace… Keith would try to remember that. The very same bayard used to kill who-knows-how-many hundreds of enemies, now weighing on Keith's own hip. Quite a legacy to live up to, huh? Friggin' heavy.

Although, come to think of it… "Hey wait - geruda don't have family names."

Coran blinked. "You know, I did notice that all of the ladies I've met have only given me their first name. But, uh, that queen, Shirun Shera of the Kingdom of Sheeba? Obviously she's got a full name."

Keith frowned. "Yeah, but I don't think anyone else does. They're super friendly, I've heard the name of every single one I've met and it's always just one."

Looking mildly disturbed, Coran crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "I suppose it has been ten thousand years. Still, seems like an odd way for a culture to change, doesn't it?" His frown deepened. "I don't believe I've seen any older gals around here either, now that I look back on it."

Keith couldn't tell anything about a geruda's age by looking, but he knew one thing. The loss of a name was the loss of individuality… Keith couldn't help the shudder than ran through his body. About ten percent of the Concordia's population seemed to be geruda, which in such a large and diverse city was a huge number of people… How many girls just called 'Kara' or 'Lala' were there running around? Creepy.

After a minute or two of plucking at the baliset strings in a heavy silence, Keith asked "So then, 'out of Kara and Vlella,' who's Vlella?"

"Oh!" Coran seemed surprised at the idea of Keith actually asking for more information from him. "Ah, she was the blue paladin at the time. I understand they were quite close friends, although," his voice in an awkward suppressed chuckle. "I suppose not as close as…" He laughed again, but it seemed more like a substitute for speech than actual amusement. "Well, you know."

Keith couldn't help the wry smirk. "And here I'd think the paladins would have been lovers with each other all over the place."

This time Coran's laugh was genuine. "Probably," he shrugged. "That's not really the sort of information that gets passed down, as it were." He sighed, and they watched distant ships fly through the cracks of orange sky they could see through the buildings. "Come to think on it, that's a funny coincidence," he announced after a moment.

Keith looked at him. "What is?"

"Oh, Vlella is all. She was from Glee Anselm."

"Am I… supposed to know what that means?"

Coran chuckled. "Right, right, of course. Glee Anselm is the same swamp planet our, uh... Acquaintance Veret hails from." Immediately Keith's mind set to imagine it, his vicious red mental image of Kara set next to another grinning blue squid. Kind of hilarious - like a fish and a bird making friends or something. Hey wait, wasn't there some kind of idiom like that? "Though she was a Nautolan and Veret…" Coran's eyebrows furrowed. "Now, what were they called again?"

"Teuthilotl," an increasingly familiar voice offered cheerfully. And like the devil being summoned by his own name there of course, was Veret. "What are we talking about?" He grinned. "Who's Vlella? Is she hot?"

Keith glared at Coran as though this was his fault for ever uttering the squids name. "No one," Keith said shortly. "How long have you been here?"

"No time at all," Veret assured smoothly. "Just long enough to hear the melodic sound of my own name."

Keith tried not to let his face twist into a scowl, and doubtlessly did not succeed. Frantically replayed the last conversation in his head - they had clearly been talking about paladins of some sort, but neither he nor Coran had made any allusions to Keith himself being one… Still, anything he could have overheard was already too much. Fuck. Keith should've known better than to even consider having this conversation out here, but it hadn't even occurred to him for a second. All the good this paranoia fucking does if it can be distracted out of him in two seconds…

"...And anyway, it's about time I stopped over again to make sure this fine establishment is conducting its business on the level," Veret continued, flicking out that same ECHO screen from is wrist and immediately snaking his way in between Keith and Coran to wander under the shoddy canvas awning casting shade over their furniture display. "Let's see, what have we got here…" He said theatrically as he looked at his screen with one pair of eyes and the surrounding wares with the beady pair on his temple. "I have no idea what any of this stuff is but the numbers look good, so we'll say it's correct!" He clapped his hands together as the screen flickered out of existence. "So! Since my official business is all taken care of…" He turned his smile towards Keith, who acknowledged the look by spitting into the dirt at their feet. Veret just laughed, "How charming."

Keith watched as one of Veret's yellow eyes met Coran's, who was watching the man with interest. "...Right, actually, hold on a moment," the squid declared, and faster than Keith had thought he could move, slithered past them both into the street. Keith watched him hail down a random passerby with a friendly wave, drawing them into a conversation that couldn't be heard from here. Threw an arm around their shoulder and turned them towards the shop, leading the alien straight to Coran with a better salesman's charm than any one of them had managed to conjure so far. "...Because I can tell you're having problems with your back from the way you stand, I really can, and I happen to know this man sells some fine beds that would do wonders for your sleep. Besides, how long have you had your current mattress? I bet you can't even remember how long ago you bought it, you know that means it's time for a new one."

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to take a look…" The alien said thoughtfully. "What have you got in stock?"

Having successfully set up a distraction for Coran, Veret reapproached Keith, settling into a lean against the desk next to Keith's chair. "Like I was saying, it seems like you've been having some trouble settling into town. And being as it is my job to help you with exactly that, I decided what better way to get you used to Concordia than by living it?"

Keith humored him with the quirk of an eyebrow. "Living it?"

"Going out on the town, of course! I bet you still haven't had the chance to explore the city at all yet, and I'd be happy to show you around. I can take you to all the best places, tell you where to steer clear of…"

Keith narrowed his eyes, hackles raised. "Steer clear of?"

"Well," Veret shrugged. "You know, we are in the seedier parts of town right here. It's dangerous for a person to wander around by themselves. You might be liable to wind up somewhere you shouldn't be."

The idea that Keith in any way couldn't take care of himself was offensive to the core, and even more annoying was the knowledge that that was exactly why Veret said it. Fucking prick. "What a great incentive," he bit out sarcastically, fingers curling around the neck of the baliset until the strings cut into him.

Veret grinned. "...Or you could just accept it as an excuse to let me buy you dinner."

Thrown off guard, Keith actually had to pause. Yeah Veret's game was to play at flirting, but he hadn't expected him to actually just… ask him out. Obviously Keith's first instinct was to shut that shit down. But he knew that in reality Veret wouldn't be asking him on a real date - the idea was actually absurd. This was an invitation to play a game - and the first opportunity any one of them had to actually get information. And even if he didn't learn anything about the MGE or any potential revolution, Keith wanted to confirm if this guy was just a normal creep or the kind that had connections to the Galra.

He glanced at Coran, still busy with the alien he was selling a bed to. Back to Veret, patiently awaiting response. Smothered the hesitance in his voice to try to sound bored, and said: "I suppose it's as good of a way to waste time as any."

Veret's smile was like the flash of a knife blade. "What time to do you get off work?"

They agreed to meet on the next tier up on the same building as the shop, where Keith could overlook to watch people wander in and out of its canvas roof by leaning on the railing and looking down at it. The city had so many high places, if Keith wanted he could find just about any angle to watch just about any building; a stalker's paradise. Which meant that at any time they could all be being watched and never know it - nope. Not now, Keith; you know the threat of being murdered is constant like always, no need to dwell on it. Just keep your eyes open and do what needs to be done.

When Veret arrived - on time, Keith had just showed up early - he had surprisingly little to say in the way of irritating Keith. Didn't even try to touch Keith, just greeted him with another one of those uncommon smiles that was more charming than toothy and started them off, a bit unsurprisingly, towards the deeper slums.

The conversation remained brief, Veret only idly pointing out places of interest as they passed them, apparently intent with a destination for them already in mind. They climbed further and further up Concordia's buildings and into the high layers of the sky, leading Keith to realize that Concordia's social structure was literally upside-down. Unlike the penthouse suites of highrises on Earth, the higher you went on Elpis the more the buildings seemed to crumble, the rich apparently favoring the convenience and relative safety of ground level and letting the proletariat populate taller tiers and layers of the great city. Still, there remained no shortage of people wherever you went, and Keith kept his eyes moving as he thought about what, exactly, he might have to offer Veret to have been invited on this outing.

Veret should have all of the information they'd given to the geruda clerk, which didn't include much more than their fake names and a bit of the Magrathea spiel Shiro had given her. So technically Veret didn't even know they were supposed to be bandits yet, just had the fact that they had ancient furniture than needed to be sold. It was implied that they were bandits, but that fact that was never confirmed, so as it was the only thing Veret could possibly find interesting was the dead planet backstory and ten thousand year old merchandise. He had already been hovering around even before he'd heard Coran and Keith talk about paladins, and they'd never said the name Voltron, but… the fact still remained Veret hadn't actively asked Keith one-on-one until he'd heard them. Yeah… If Keith were a Galra spy looking for paladins of Voltron, it would all be just enough for him to get suspicious of them. Which meant the probability Veret was Galra scum and not just Guild filth had just shot up exponentially. Great.

"Here we are," Veret eventually declared, gesturing towards a short downward-sloping alley with the single door of a building at the end. "Tash's bar. Not the best food in the city but one of the only places where you don't have to look over your shoulder to watch your back the whole meal."

"Yeah?" Keith followed him to the alley. "What makes it so safe?"

"Tash's total inability to withstand bullshit from her customers," Veret answered cheerfully. "They say she caught someone eavesdropping on another table and poured a cup of scalding kaffa right in their ear and told them to mind their own business. It's probably not true, but everyone likes to pretend it is so we have one decent bar where everyone actually does mind their own shit."

"Fair enough," Keith agreed, allowing Veret to hold the door open for him before stepping inside.

The bar was lively, and better-lit than Keith had expected it to be. At least bright enough that no one of the many faces around were obscured in shadow, and Keith could see the weathered and aged geruda at the bar who was presumably Tash. Huh. So they really did get older than all the girls he'd seen running around.

They found a table for two to sit down and even took the time to actually order food, Keith choosing something at random from the illegible list of meals on the automatic menu they ordered from. And then they settled in to get comfortable, Keith waiting for Veret to make the first move.

Whoever spoke first had no choice but to reveal to the other what it was they wanted. Veret seemed at first unwilling to give himself this disadvantage, and they settled into a silence not unlike the one shared by wolves circling each other in the first steps of a fight. Finally, Veret put his white pawn forward(5), and the game began. "So, you must've heard the rumor, right?"

A tactical question in which no actual information was revealed. Not bad. Keith just let his head roll lazily to the side, arms crossed over his chest as he boredly asked, "What rumor?"

Veret's smile didn't waver, his eyes only narrowing further in amusement. "Weren't you guys just talking about it? I heard you guys say something about paladins."

Keith carefully considered his options on answering. He was playing the part of a bandit, giving out too little would be just as suspicious as too much… "You mean that rumor going around that ancient warrior robot thing Voltron has revived? Even we heard that one, isn't it old by now?"

"Not just that it's revived," Veret drawled with calculated ease. "That it's even supposed to be here on Elpis."

Fuck. Fucking fuck . No, this was fine. This was fine, Keith could deal with this. Keep cool and put forward your bishop and hope he takes the bait. "That's actually not surprising," Keith offered. "But it's also probably just because of us."

Veret raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" Looked impressed that Keith had been so bold as to offer this much. "And why would that be?"

Keith shifted his eyes away with deliberate casualness, looking off into the din of aliens drinking and eating and laughing around them. This was where he lay down his hand; the story they'd set up to divert attention away from them. All he had to do was be convincing. "Well, as for that Voltron rumor… I can actually confirm it's true. We saw it with our own eyes over on Thuban 9. And…" He let his eyes turn back to meet Veret's again, but kept his head tilted casually away.

A grin slipped across Veret's face, and he leaned forward on the table towards Keith in unconscious interest. "And?"

Keith's eyes fell back away towards the wall. "...And, while we happened to be there and Voltron happened to be busy fighting some Galra, the captain may have happened to find their mothership. And while they happened to be rather distracted by the Galra they were fighting, we may have happened to slip inside and steal a few things."

Veret actually let a laugh bark out of him. "You ROBBED the paladins of Voltron?"

"Nothing they'd really miss," Keith shrugged. "Just some… You know. Furniture and whatnot."

Veret's amusement at this was complete and unrestrained. "'Wares we need to unload in a hurry', indeed," he laughed. "So then you guys really are a gang of thieves after all, huh?"

Keith let one shoulder rise in a nonchalant shrug, carefully training his expression into a tiny coy smile, like he was suppressing a smirk. "We have our own ways of getting by," he said evasively.

Veret leaned back in his seat again, shark-toothed smile splitting his face open with amusement. "So we do. Remind me to watch out for sticky fingers." This time, Keith didn't have to do any acting for his face to twist into a smothered laugh. Veret watched this, and, after a moment stated with matter-of-fact certainty: "...You've stolen my wallet, haven't you."

Keith bit his lip, but the snicker broke through anyway in an ugly snort. He tossed Veret's wallet onto the table between them, and Veret broke out into another mirthful laugh. "You son of a bitch," he declared gleefully as he took it back. "I can't believe you didn't take anything out of it."

"How else would I make you pay for my dinner?"

Veret laughed again, genuinely entertained. "So that Magrathean Nomad bit on the registry is just your cover story to pretend you're not a band of space pirates?"

This question, at least, Keith had covered. "That part's true, actually." They hadn't gone to the trouble of picking out a real dead planet in the Milky Way and memorizing their backstories just to tell one clerk at a desk. "Our ancestors set out on the very same ship we were all born on. Flying all the way here from the backward-ass boonies Magrathea died in, zig-zagging its way across the universe until thousands of years later our asses wind up here on Elpis."

"What a magical journey," Veret said sardonically.

"Yeah," Keith agreed flatly. "The whole thing is actually ridiculous. That's why so many of us went with Captain Fenchurch when she decided to steal a ship and set out on her own a few years ago on Nelvana III."

"I gotta say, that's genuinely pretty awesome."

That statement left a break in the conversation, an opening for Keith to make the next move. It his was chance to get some information of his own, but… What to ask. He wanted to pursue his suspicion that Veret was working for the Galra but even if he found a safe way to bring it up, it was also obviously exactly what a paladin of Voltron would be interested in. Too risky. Instead, he shifted to sling a lazy arm over the back of his chair, and with precise aloofness threw out "So what's up with this Merchant's Guild of yours, anyway? I hear the cops are under MGE control, do you guys just own the whole city or what?"

"Maybe not the whole city," Veret's smile was a bit mocking, but not towards Keith. "But I'll admit that the queen has very little in the way of actual power." Keith didn't respond with words, just a raised eyebrow that suggested the squid continue. Veret picked up the nonverbal cue, continuing with slight hesitation. "Ah lets see... I guess the best way to explain it would be like… A big, planet-wide protection racket. This arm of the galaxy is supposed to have agreed to be pacifistic and unman their militaries, right? So since Elpis can't legally pull together a police or guard large enough to properly protect this place, some old queen a thousand years ago figured that if it wasn't the government running it there was no need to tell anyone exactly how big any personal police force might get. Somehow the MGE was the solution that worked itself out, and so now we run as much of Elpis as the Queen's government."

"Sounds like the Geruda really fucked themselves over."

"Well, I don't really know if I'd say that," Veret disagreed. "I mean ultimately the goal was to keep the royal line in office so that a geruda is always leading the people of Elpis. Even if her hands are tied behind her back, it isn't just the geruda that feel more comfortable with a proper Elpesian queen standing tall."

Keith considered this. "There is a lot of power in just having the people on your side," he finally conceded. "But it still leaves anyone whose complaint is against the MGE pretty much fucked."

"Then maybe they should take it up with the queen," Veret laughed.

Keith saw another break in the conversation, but didn't know how to use it to his advantage yet. He didn't have time to figure it out, either - it was just then that their server arrived, proving once again Concordia's insistence on blending their reliance on technology with their reliance on people, considering nowhere Keith had ever been before now had automatic menus to order but real people instead of robots delivering the food. The plate, too, was a technology Keith and the others had all run across many times before: when one made skin contact with it, an automatic sensor scanned the chemical content of the food on the plate against the chemicals in your body, and if what's on the plate is toxic to whomever is consuming it the rim of the plate with turn bright red in warning. It wasn't a perfect system, since it only detected if the food would kill you and not if it would like, fuck you up drunk. Keith was already aware of this because even the Castle of Lions had this basic tech, which is how they'd known the food goo was even safe to eat in the first place. They also knew it was a flawed technology because of the time Lance got fucked up on space juice and had somehow become convinced Keith was a cyborg that needed to be destroyed before the Great Robot Uprising. So, randomly getting high off anything was yet another constant risk they all had no choice but to take day after day.

Unfortunately, just a second or two after Keith's finger made contact his plate flashed red at him. "Ah, shit."

"HA!" Veret's laugh was delighted, and he snaked over the table to steal Keith's plate from him and pop a cherry-looking bit of fruit into his mouth. "S'what you get for picking something at random."

What happened next was pure foster-home-bred reflex, and thus Keith felt he was not responsible for his actions. That being, standing out of his seat to snatch Veret's own plate from in front of him, and even before confirming there was no red light he was already spitting over as much of the food as possible to claim as his own gross territory. When Keith sat back down with it and started eating, Veret just stared at him in honest surprise, mouth slightly parted in an aborted word. And then he burst out laughing so hard he doubled over in his chair, shoulders shaking as he tried to bury his laughter in his hands. Not quite certain what to do with this reaction, Keith just scowled at him and ate a forkful of blue noodles.

They ate in relative silence, and Keith wondered if he had missed his opportunity to get any more information out of him. He'd have to be careful, steer the conversation towards where he wanted Veret to be and he just wasn't sure he had the linguistic skills necessary for that. Especially since he'd need to try to stay in character as a stoic pirate raider, and most of his strategy for that role so far was to just glare a lot. He might have been able to slip in a question about the Galra while Veret had been talking about the police defending Concordia, but now that topic was long passed and he didn't know how or if he could bring it back up at all at this point. Keith frowned into his pasta, watching the end of a noodle flick in circles around his plate as he spun it onto his fork. What options did he have to work with here...

"So," Veret's tone was light, and he was looking at his own fork like he couldn't care one way or another what Keith's response was. "What was the other question you wanted to ask?"

Keith froze, looking up at Veret with drawn eyebrows. Veret grinned again, looking at Keith directly as he clarified, "Earlier when you asked about the Guild, you hesitated like you were still thinking about something. And just now you were glaring at your yurba like it held all the answers to the universe. So," he smiled at Keith like they were actually friends, and Keith hated him for being so damned observant that he could read Keith like an open menu. "What's the question that's bothering you so much?"

Keith just looked at him for a moment, mind reeling. Just how much could he push this… What could he gain without giving too much away? "I'm not usually one to question a good thing, but it has been bothering me…"

Veret's smile was open, inviting Keith to continue. "There don't seem to be any Galra bases on this planet," Keith gambled. "We'd thought that they must just be underground, but even once we got into the city the crew has spotted exactly one Galra, and he was wearing board shorts and a straw hat. The MGE can't possibly be enough to be protecting the planet from them - if anything they should only make Elpis even more of a target."

Silvery eyes narrowed in unrestrained pleasure, and Keith had the very real feeling that he had just laid the wrong card down. "Isn't that a good question, now?" He agreed in a silky voice, unpleasant shivers running down Keith's spine at the sound. "Because you're right. This planet isn't under Galra banners. Seems a little strange when you look at the rest of this system."

Keith's frown only tightened, having given away his hand to get nothing in return. "Yeah, I noticed."

"Well," Veret said reasonably. "Let's think about it. The Galra take over a planet when they need something from it, right? Whether it's a resource or just a good location, the Galra take what they need. And from what I've seen, they don't bother wasting manpower on empty planets they have no use of." He poked one of the small red fruits on his plate until it rolled to the other side. "So logically, that means there are only a couple of reasons that make sense."

Watching the path of the red orb as it bounced softly against the plate's rim, Keith tilted his head to the side. "That whatever they'd gain from here isn't worth the trouble of dismantling the Merchant's Guild?"

"That's the obvious answer," the tip of of Veret's fork tapped lightly against the top of the fruit when he pinned it down, and Keith noticed for the first time that the shiny red of of it wasn't skin but a solid shell. "But here's another interesting idea," Veret offered. "Maybe it's the opposite. Perhaps whatever it is the Galra need from Elpis is something too delicate to simply conquer through warfare." He pressed down, and the shell cracked under the weight of his fork. "Something that can't be taken by force."

Something that can't be taken by force? Something that Elpis had that the Galra needed so badly they couldn't risk destroying it…

Keith watched the bright purple orange juice as it leaked out of the crushed fruit onto Veret's plate. There was nothing left that he could say, and had no choice but to sit through the rest of the meal with the feeling that he'd lost far more than he'd gained tonight.

(5) Keith was taught the rules to chess by Shiro during an effort to still some patience in him and show Keith the value of stopping to think before he moved. Whether or not this ultimately succeeded Shiro learned something himself, which was that the only way to prevent Keith from flipping the board over and scattering the game was to nail it down. He then also learned that it was more difficult to nail something down than take it off, and subsequently learned to navigate around the chessboard embedded into the top of his desk for the rest of the year.

Keith was in a mood worse than foul by the time he returned to the castle. He still didn't know what that stupid fucking squid wanted, just knew he had managed to give it to him regardless. Two hours of his life wasted on that asshole, and what did Keith have to show for it? Should have kept the money from that dickwad's wallet, at least then Keith would be able to say he'd taken something of Veret's. Shit.

Keith was headed straight towards the training deck, no intention of stopping for anything on his way to fuck something up with his sword. Too wound up to remember to be anxious, he made no efforts to avoid his fellow paladins, and he paid for this carelessness. Of course! When else but now? What better time than right fucking now to finally get cornered by an irate Lance? This is how his life worked now, wasn't it? Just fucking make every moment more stressful than the last!

"And just where were you all damned night?" Lance's words were sharp as a blade's edge, and the angry twist to his eyebrows said he wouldn't like any answer no matter what Keith gave.

Fucking christ, this again. Why the hell did he keep bringing this up? Why the hell did he CARE so much what the fuck Keith was doing with his time? "Are you completely incapable of getting off my back? It was nothing, I was just in town getting dinner."

Keith watched the flash of anger in Lance's eyes, and deep down the part of him that was hornier than it was mad reminded Keith that his boyfriend was always at his most handsome when he was being serious. "Just getting dinner, huh?" Lance spat, eyebrows drawn into a tense, angry line. "And you don't feel the need to mention this dinner is with that douchebag Veret, even when I ask you where you were?"

Ah, shit. So much for Veret's distraction - should have known Coran's ears were too big not to eavesdrop. Fucking snitch. "Not really, considering I knew your reaction would be exactly this."

"So you knew I'd be pissed, but you still went anyway?" It was more of an accusation than a question, and Keith could feel his heart rate rising from the adrenaline of his own rage.

He made it sound like Keith had deliberately done it to piss him off - all the work Keith was doing for this god damned mission, and this prick still managed to make this about himself! "Yeah, because maybe not every decision I fucking make revolves around you !"

"So basically," The furrowed space between Lance's eyebrows twitched like his face wasn't even capable of containing his fury without shaking the same way the rest of his body was. The way both of them were - full boil in a seethe of his own, Keith's shoulders were shaking and his face was growing hot with uncontained ire even before Lance stepped forward to close the space between them and - oh shit he smelled good. Fuck. Not now, horniness, the rest of the body is very busy being mad right now. "What you're saying is that my feelings are too fucking petty to bother even considering. Good to know where we stand on that one, or I'd have never known how fucking self-absorbed you are."

"Self-absorbed?!" _Self-absorbed?!_ That, coming from this asshole of all people? The fucking nerve he had! Everything Keith had been putting himself through, and the stress these weeks of trying to decide if he had to break both of their hearts for the sake of the entire fucking universe , and now that made Keith self-absorbed! "That's rich coming from a fucking flake like you; you can't pull your head out of your own ass long enough to focus on a single mission!"

Lance rolled his eyes, so dramatically the gesture managed to take his whole body to accomplish. "'The mission," he quoted with mocking annoyance. "It's always the mission to you, isn't it? God forbid even once you should actually consider anyone's human emotions! How silly of me, for a second I forgot that our relationship is always secondary to Voltron and your fucking missions!"

"Of course it is!" Keith couldn't restrain his voice from breaking into a shout. "People are _dying_ out there Lance! There's a fucking war going on and every one of us is in danger of getting killed every second of every day-"

"Well, we're NOT dead, Keith!" Lance was definitely yelling back, voice high and animated gestures bordering on violent "War or not for right now all of us are still alive, and you don't give any kind of shit about the kind of lives we're living until then, do you? It's all fucking war and death; no time for even a few god damned seconds of- of love and happiness, just gotta focus on your TRAINING!" He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing a hand to his forehead for a moment like he had actually gotten so mad he'd given himself a headache from it. "All I ever wanted was for you to open up to me, I spend- I have been giving you every fucking piece of myself, and I don't even know why anymore when all you ever do is keep pushing me away!"

" _I'm_ pushing _you_ away, now!?" The memory of being literally shoved off of Lance when Keith had reached out to him stung at Keith's mind, the humiliation and hurt from that moment only fueling his rage more in this one. "Un- fucking -believable! Can you seriously not see how fucking hard I've been trying?! You're the one that got cold on me, and now you can't even understand it when I just want a little god damned SPACE!"

"We're IN space, Keith!" Lance gestured to the room - of the spaceship they were indeed in - at large. "You have all the SPACE you need!" He scoffed so loud it was practically a curse, and turned away from Keith. "If you wanted to be alone so badly we should have left you in the fucking desert," he spat out the words like they burned his tongue, and stepped away with the apparent intent to storm off.

Keith's breath had caught in his throat, Lance's words hitting him like a punch to the neck. He could feel his entire body shaking, mind blurring out from white hot rage, as he wondered how the fuck Lance could stand saying such a cruel thing to Keith. He knew - he fucking knew how much Keith had hated that deserted shack, knew that place had driven him half to madness. Lance knew that finally leaving that lonely hell and joining the paladins in space was the first good thing to happen in his shitty life, and he had the nerve to say - just to fucking hurt him! He'd said that because he'd fucking known it would hurt Keith, and the scorching pain of Keith's resulting anger made him want to lash out. Make Lance hurt the way he'd done to Keith, with deliberate and vicious precision. Before he had the chance to consider what the words would do they were falling out of his mouth, and even knowing that not a word of it was true didn't matter as long as it made Lance _hurt_ , as painful as Keith could make it for both of them. "Maybe we should have left you behind instead! I'd have had better luck trying to get with Shiro than wasting my time on you !"

Lance froze mid-step, and at first Keith had nothing to watch but the solid tense line of his back. When he turned around he was wearing a face so apocalyptically angry it was almost calm, but the fire of rage lighting up his eyes was unmissable. "You fucking bitch ," he hissed out, stalking back towards Keith.

Keith's eyes widened, and he unconsciously stepped backwards to end up against the nearest wall. His heart was going a thousand miles an hour, and when Lance reached him he wasn't sure if Lance intended to punch him, or -

Lance's hand slammed against the wall beside Keith's head, caging him in to loom inches away from Keith's face. And shit, Keith was really fucked up in the head, he was pretty sure, because instead of making him more angry like that really should have Keith just ended up having a flashback to the last time Lance had him pinned to a wall. Ah, hell, it was getting harder to ignore all the wrong kinds of hot he was right now, because Keith definitely wasn't done being angry but Lance just had to look and smell so fucking good when he was mad, and he was caught up in remembering how that forceful side of Lance he was showing now could be so, so hot during sex… Shit. Fuck, Keith was totally turned on right now. He was so fucked up.

He bit his lip, hoping Lance wouldn't realize that his body was doing the wrong kind of trembling right now. But Lance's gaze went straight to where Keith's teeth were pressing against his lower lip, and his eyebrow twisted upward in slight bemusement, like he had noticed something strange, and then he licked his lips. "You…" He said shortly, and Keith understood that something had just shifted and the entire situation had just turned really, really, weird. "Are you seriously turned on right now?" He said the words like he wanted them to be an accusation, but they ended up twisting up and the end and Keith didn't know how it happened or who started it but after that everything went straight to hell. Suddenly they were kissing, if something so rough and full of teeth could be classified by such a word, and the different kind of conflicting heat building up between them converged into an inferno of bad ideas.

Against his lips in between bites, Lance complained "I can't fucking believe you get hot from arguing, of course you do you weird little fucking -"

"Shut up ," Keith hissed, sucking Lance's tongue into his mouth in an effort to get him to just stop talking . "Shut up, just shut the fuck up ."

Lance managed another angry scoff against Keith's mouth, "Of _course_ ." He pulled away from Keith's mouth to shove his face against Keith's neck, his breath hot on his throat as he hissed out, "Lord knows this is all I'm good for with you anyway," before biting down hard.

What happened after that, Keith was not proud of. Whatever this was it was twisted and distorted with rage, the two of them clawing and biting at each other so much it was almost more of a fight than sex. The only proof they had to the opposite was that somehow in the scrambling and groping they'd both managed to come, grinding and shaking against each other in an ugly parody of lovemaking.

They couldn't even look at each other when it was over. Lance stood up and buried his face in his hands, a final angry curse of " _FUCK!_ " ringing through the hallway behind him as he left.

Keith stayed there. Curled into a boneless puddle on the floor and leaning against the wall, Keith drew his knees to his chest and rested his head on them, feeling dirtier and emptier and more disgusted with himself than he'd ever thought capable of in his life.

And then for some reason, it was now that it finally came to mind. The idiom he'd been trying to remember earlier, rising fresh in his brain just to pour salt on his aching, wounded heart.

A fish and a bird may indeed fall in love, but where would they make their home?

The meaning of the idiom was obvious: love alone was not enough to make a relationship work. Sometimes, there was just no such thing as reaching a compromise.

In the ridiculousness of it all, Keith felt his body start to shake with laughter. Broken, ironic laughter that squeezed the breath out his throat. Laughter that turned into tears at the end, until Keith was left alone in an empty hallways crying silently into his own arms.


	5. To Trust

Weeks passed, and the only thing Keith could say in their favor was that now Lance was avoiding Keith just as hard as he was avoiding Lance. Whether it was the tense, heavy silences of shared meals and training or their mutual efforts to arrange it so they never worked the stall together, their ironic cooperation on the efforts to not speak to or look at each other were running so smoothly they'd even mastered the art of not exchanging a single word in combat around one another well enough to avoid getting themselves killed. It was a little impressive, but… Mostly depressing.

In all the free time he now had thanks to avoiding Lance, Keith had mostly been talking to Pidge, it turns out. In a conversation that had started with Keith bursting into her room shouting, "But there are no tampons in space?!" (There indeed are not, it turns out, but she reported that kotex were not hard to jimmie together thank you for the concern) he had learned she'd been up to so far in the weeks they'd been on Elpis. She'd already admitted her personal strategy for digging up rumors was to wander down into Concordia's criminal underworld, a feat which she both decided on and accomplished when she'd stumbled across a gang of thieves trying to break into the back of a warehouse and graciously hacked the lock to get the door open for them. But what she revealed to Keith alone was that somewhere in the continued heists and break-ins she was participating in, she had started being responsible for orchestrating more and more of the plans, until before anyone knew it she had somehow been put in charge.

"We went from robbing store warehouses to breaking into databanks and now we're like, stealing big company secrets and selling them to each other and I was just trying to minimize the amount of like, illegalness and actual crime we were doing because how much harm could a little information be? But now we're dealing with like, actual real corporate espionage here and I'm starting to get concerned by how good I am at this!"

Keith had given the situation some careful consideration, before contributing, "...We did rob that guy for fun, didn't we?"

Pidge, not finding Keith's contribution reassuring, had buried her face in her tiny hands. "We're making so much money!"

The only half-helpful comment he'd had to offer was that at least she wasn't the only one proving to be better at being a criminal than a paladin.

It was a bonding moment. Keith would cherish it always.

Hunk on the other hand, had found his talents lie elsewhere. Much to... Really only his own surprise, Hunk had turned out to excel in the art of antiquing, because far away from just being the person making the most individual sales; he was single-handedly clearing out their inventory. He was just so fuckin' nice, not a single customer could bear to say no to him once he'd lured him into the shop.

So effectively was their friend at annihilating their stores of furniture, Allura had wound up having to go through the rooms of the castle again just to find more things they could sell. Their current stock was raided from a set of royal bedrooms she'd never intended to disturb, but they could hardly start selling off things they'd actually need like spare parts or medical equipment.

"And that's it, it's all in here," Allura announced with finality as she sashayed up to Inara's bridge with a checklist. "The complete set from the Royal Master Suite, all loaded up and ready for the store." She tossed herself elegantly into the unoccupied copilot's seat, and Keith figured her announcement he could begin Inara's takeoff. She looked back over her shoulder a little wistful as Keith carefully lifted the ship into a low hover, waiting for the bay doors to open for them. "Pitiful as it is to be selling off things from my parents' bedchamber, it's not like anyone was going in there anyway."

"No time for sentimentality in war," Keith agreed, taking the Firefly into speed. "Are we gonna sell off your old room after this?"

Allura looked at him as though the question were ridiculous. "We can't very well do that while I'm still sleeping there, can we?"

Which was a statement Keith found surprising himself. "You're seriously still sleeping in the same bed you did ten thousand years ago, when everything was still… before it was like this?"

From the look on her face, Allura was only just this moment realizing there might be something twisted about that. "I do suppose there are a lot of rooms in the castle with less… nostalgia attached to them."

"Right?" Keith offered reasonably. "Hell, you could take that Royal Master Suite, since it is yours."

At this idea, Allura straight-up grimaced. "That might be taking it a bit far. Taking my parents bedroom sounds… distasteful."

"The castle is generations old though, right? Doesn't that mean your father took it from his parents?" Once again, he apparently blindsided her with logic, as she sat in the copilots seat with her jaw hanging open like she had begun the start of an argument she couldn't finish. Keith nodded his head back towards the cargo bay behind them. "And it's not like you'd be sleeping in their bed, after all."

"That is true, but…" Allura hesitated.

Although he knew he probably didn't have much room to tell her anything about her life considering Keith didn't know what it was even like to have parents, but it felt like Allura wasn't quite understanding his actual point. "Allura. The entire castle belongs to you. You're literally the only person who can even make those wormhole things work."

Her eyebrows furrowed. " My castle..."

"You're the one who brought us together, guiding us as paladins, right?"

"I am," she agreed with a bit more confidence. "Even in the beginning when half of you were still trying to get out of it and flee home."

"Exactly! Because you don't take any bullshit from any of us, do you?" Keith continued, almost having dragged Allura into his pace.

"I certainly don't," she agreed, excitable and full of energy.

"You don't!" Keith agreed with equal enthusiasm. "You don't because it's your castle and you're the damned Queen!"

Allura's fist slammed down on the empty space next to her control panel. "I am the god-damned Queen!"

The sound of her hand slamming down against metal and the slight metal ring left echoing was enough to snap both of them back to reality, where they realized they had been shouting for literally no reason whatsoever. A bit awkwardly, Allua settled back into her seat. "Well. I still doubt I'll take the master bedroom, but I think it is time to move out of my old chambers." She smoothed out a nonexistent wrinkle from her coat. "Today might perhaps be a day for some new furniture shopping, after all."

The thought was sliding out of Keith's mouth before he could control it, and he was offering, "You could take Lance with you. He'd probably be amazing at it." And then immediately winced at his own words, only just remembering how desperately he did not want to think or talk about Lance right now.

Allura didn't notice, looking ahead out the window in front of them instead of at his face. "Oh that would be fun, he has such fascinating tastes."

Changing the subject away from his boyfriend as quickly as possible, Keith added, "And you'll definitely be able get something nice, with how much money Hunk has been making for us."

"Yes," Allura agreed thoughtfully. "No need to get too extravagant of course, it never hurts to be frugal in trying times."

See, and this was why Keith liked Allura. Someone needed to be sensible around here, and lord knows Keith hasn't been shining in that department lately.

There was, for a few moments, a comfortable silence between them as they watched Elpis fly past their window. It was not to last, however, as Allura eventually offered a hesitant, "You know…" into the empty bridge.

Keith glanced over at her, only to notice her biting her lip worriedly. "Not to involve myself in matters I have no part of," she started. Fuck, this was bound to come eventually. The only reason everyone had to have left this him-and-Lance situation alone for so long is because they haven't needed to form Voltron in that time, but if they ever got around to finishing or abandoning this mission… "And you and Lance have proven you're perfectly capable of handling what's between you with no interference from anyone else, so I don't intend to pry or pretend to offer advice, but…"

Not quite able to smother the sigh escaping from his nose, Keith prompted, "But?"

She drew in a breath, still looking straight ahead out the window. "Just, as far as whatever is causing the rift between you two right now, I wanted to say," she turned to look him straight in the eye. "I don't think you should worry about it."

He blinked. That was... not what he'd expected to hear. "Don't worry about it?"

She nodded fiercely. "Yes. Don't waste your energy being concerned by it. I'm completely certain that once we make contact with the Queen and get back to space and working on an attack strategy against Zarkon, everything will work itself out."

"Seriously?" For some reason he'd expected Allura to disapprove of their relationship before anything. Not that she seemed cold or anything - just… The two of them fought enough without the huge emotional investment in each other. Their relationship was basically a shoebox of flint pieces bouncing around the back of a truck bed: fairly harmless and potentially useful, but inevitably bound to spontaneously set itself on fire. As far as the perspective of someone with the fate of Voltron and an entire universe on her hands, it seemed more like a bad idea than a good one. Or at least that's what he'd assumed?

"Oh, completely," she assured with more confidence. "It's a stressful time for everyone right now, and I know you especially must be feeling like a caged skag with nothing to do like this. I'm sure once you get back into Red and let some of that blood boil off in a good fight, you'll feel so much better you won't even remember why you were mad at each other!"

"That…" Did not sound completely unlikely, to be honest. She sure had him pegged, huh? "You really think so?" he asked, embarrassed by the hopeful lilt in his voice.

Allura grinned. "Absolutely. I have complete faith you two will be just fine. Give it a bit of time, is all."

There was a tight feeling in his chest, and he felt his grip around Inara's steering wheel go white. Would they really, though? "What makes you so sure? You don't even know what went wrong between us."

She shrugged easily, looking concerned by his doubt. "You two have been good for each other. There's a bit of disparity in how seriously either of you take things, but together you balance out one another's extremes." There was a bit of laughter in her voice when she continued, "And for one thing, your involvement with him made something I once thought impossible a reality - I actually made friends with Lance!"

At that even Keith had to chuckle. "Yeah, he was pretty… Relentless about hitting on you, wasn't he?"

She rolled her eyes so hard her whole body went with her, slumping back into her seat. "I couldn't even stand having him around in meetings, I'd never have imagined we'd be having actual conversations!"

Keith snorted, still smiling. "Honestly for those first few days out in space, neither did I. It's like he goes out of his way to make himself seem as unlikeable and douchey as possible, I'll never understand it." Hey wait, there was something about that sentence that seemed…

Allura was already speaking again. "You'll never imagine how shocked I was the first time we ever spoke an entire exchange without him making some awful innuendo at me. I was so sure it was still coming I just kept prodding him and dragging out the conversation, just to see if he was really capable of a complete hundred ticks without being annoying."

"You don't know how surprised I was when our first date didn't end in a fist fight," Keith admitted, earning laugh from Allura. They had still argued here and there, but there hadn't been any real tension in them. Maybe because instead of working against each other they had been trying to cooperate; their arguments during missions were never tense or truly angry, either. Also one of the arguments had been about whether Han Solo could beat Captain Kirk in a fight and there was literally no way to take THAT seriously. Like, really - Kirk ? Yeah right. The Enterprise was an exploration vessel full of freakin' scientists , how many times had they had to ditch planet because they'd gotten into a bar fight with a crew full of bounty hunters? Significantly less, that's how many.

There was a break in conversation, well-timed since Keith had just arrived at the barrier to Concordia to get their passports checked. It was still another half hour flight at least to get their ship parked close enough to the shop to unload, and for the first minute after they'd resumed their flight neither of them said anything.

"Well, and," she started up again, laughter coloring her voice. "It's a bit of a silly superstition, nothing to take too seriously…" Keith looked back at her in interest, not sure what a superstition would have to do with anything when the last thing they'd been talking about was Lance. "But there have been quite a few generations of paladins, as you know, and some patterns here and there were noticed. And they say that, ah, when it comes to romantic entanglements, the Red and Blue paladins are historically quite compatible."

He wasn't sure why it was this of all things that made him flush, but the sudden embarrassment rapidly warmed his face. "I- They - That's a thing?!"

"That's not even the only 'thing,'" she grinned. "They also say, for instance, that Red and Green romances tend to be very short-lived.

Keith snorted. "I don't know why, but thats hilarious." So much for that sort of information not getting passed down, huh? Guess it all depends on who you asked. History is in the eye of the beholder, they say.

Allura seemed to genuinely think everything would work out for the best, didn't she? Keith just needed to cool his head, he was an inferno of stress and pent-up aggression right now. It wasn't even safe to interact with Lance when Keith was this desperate to pick a fight with anyone.

Keith needed to get out of this rut Elpis had stuck him into. Needed to make something happen, prove that they hadn't been here for weeks already for no reason and no gain. Keith needed to strike out, be aggressive and proactive. That was his nature, wasn't it? He'd been holding himself back for nearly a month, he needed to lash out and take action .

He could only think of one possible lead, one idea to get him any closer to anything.

He needed to find out what the fuck Veret was up to.

"So…" Keith eventually broke the silence with a smirk. "You're the 'God-damned Queen' are you? I thought Altean only had one swear word."

Allura flushed with embarrassment herself. "Well you are the one that started that," she smiled. "And, I must admit, I have grown a bit taken with the sheer amount of variety Earth curse words have. And not to mention versatility! Why the word 'Fuck' alone took me a full month to comprehend, so plentiful its uses."

It might have been the sound of the word "Fuck" falling from their princess's regal tongue, but Keith laughed so hard he nearly crashed their spaceship into an overpass.

Concordia worked in Keith's favor, because over the next few days Keith learned his way about the city well enough that he was confident he could track someone moving through without being noticed.

Even if, for example, this person happened to have a second set of eyes increasing their field of vision. Once he was confident in his ability to maneuver his way through the city as he pleased, it wasn't hard to start figuring out Veret's routine.

Veret had a set series of shops he seemed to be assigned to, and and spent a large portion of his day wandering around from booth to booth checking on them and, much to Keith's surprise, actually providing legitimate help for some of his charges. But then it wouldn't have made much sense for Veret to be actively bad at his job, and since his actual job seemed to be something akin to Human Resources being helpful was kind of unavoidable.

It was after Veret was finished with his real work that Keith had more trouble following him. The first day Keith had tailed him he'd lost Veret at the MGE Headquarters building, giving up too soon on the hopes that he'd see the alien remerge from the building. The next two days after that Keith stayed the several hours Veret had been inside, only to lose him in the cramped and crowded upper tiers of the city soon after. By the fourth day Keith managed to keep him in sights, tracking Veret all the way from blue sunrise until he reached the apartment building Keith soon realized he lived, by which time Keith had to start heading back because he'd skipped dinner again and needed to get at least a little bit of food and sleep into his system to be able to try again tomorrow.

By the end of the week, Keith thought he might finally have something. Veret's routine was mostly randomized, seeming to keep the time schedule of a man who couldn't read clocks. But there were a few constants in his mess of variables, like the obvious fact that the red daylight hours were reserved for his actual job.

Another constant Keith had noticed was that after work hours, all of Veret's business was always up high in the lower-class tiers of Concordia. There was in this pattern only one exception - every other night the last stop before he went back to his apartment was on the very ground level, a building dug straight into the dirt of Elpis. It wasn't even a large or particularly noticeable building, either - practically carved into the back of an alley, Keith had the feeling that wherever the only door in really led it was probably straight underground into a basement.

It was here, Keith knew. Whatever there was to find, whatever happened from here, daring to enter that single rust-orange door was what was going to start it.

One more day of planning, and Keith was ready to act. Veret always left MGE HQ after no less than about three hours, and was the one place he could be relied on to be at the same time every day. This left Keith a window, a set time before he'd need to be even in Concordia at all, and Keith gratefully used it to to make sure he was well-rested enough for whatever was going to happen tonight.

Before he'd even reached Concordia, Keith started to feel… Alive again. Heart beating strong and loud from anxious excitement, the fear of getting caught and really being killed set Keith's blood boiling in his veins. There was nothing like this feeling - no training could come close, fighting the Gladiators he could always call off at any moment was no substitute for the adrenaline one got from a life-or-death situation.

Keith felt fucking fantastic .

Even the act of waiting on a roof, watching the MGE building with the magnifying scope glasses he'd swiped off of Lance because wearing them was less suspicious than wandering around town with binoculars strapped to his face like a jackass, was no longer tortuously boring. Instead Keith was ready, body and mind high-strung with anticipation, waiting (a bit ironically) like a sniper with his finger on the trigger.

Unfortunately, it took an hour for anything to happen. Even more unfortunately, that hour of inactivity gave Keith time to think . And thanks to Allura what he ended up thinking about, once again , was Lance.

The fact that no one had said anything about their obvious tension meant that the others, like Allura, figured everything would eventually work itself out between them. But no one knew what had actually happened, so could they really make that kind of judgement? That night that he and Lance stopped talking to each other… What had happened that night… Keith had never realized anything between them was capable of being so ugly and so twisted.

It was hard to clear his head for a while after that. Dark thoughts lingered in his brain as he kept vigil, filling him with perhaps more doubt than ever.

Toxic relationships, and cutting people out of your life. A fish and a bird, unable to find middle ground. The sharp intensity of remembered rage, and the desire to lash out and hurt .

And, the loneliness. The last few days had been so lonely .

Finally, after a long impatient hour of waiting, Veret was emerging from his workplace and Keith's world snapped out of his mind and narrowed back down to the excited tension of a mission in progress.

He couldn't say how much time passed after that. Keith might have been following him across Concordia for hours and would never know, too focused on the chase to let the petty troubles of the outside world distract him from his quarry. Following silently from the safety of higher ground, staying out of Veret's expansive line of sight took up pretty much all the energy Keith had to expend on anything. He was anxious, and nervous, and wanted to run ahead to the building where he knew Veret would eventually be headed but the risk of Veret wandering over from an unanticipated direction and spotting Keith was too high to be worth it. He had already judged Veret's blind spot was directly behind him, and it wasn't safe to stay too far out to either side or risk being caught in peripherals.

It was made both more and less challenging by the ubiquitous sea of alien life populating the city so insistently, providing extra cover to keep Keith out of sight with the double-sided edge of ramping up Keith's social paranoia and making it hard to focus on his one target among the many possible threats. But Keith also already knew their final destination, even if not when or how they'd get there tonight, and that made it easier to keep from losing his way.

When Veret reached Elpis's floor Keith had to abandon his higher ground to follow, no skyways or tiered roof conveniently set up near the low block for Keith to take up post in. So closer and closer to Veret he was forced to stray, the danger from the increased proximity making Keith's every individual footstep ring like thunder in his own ears, drowning out the persistent excitement of his heartbeat.

Down the slip of an alleyway they went until at last Keith was watching from afar as Veret unlocked the bronze door, sliding inside and out of Keith's sight.

And this was the problem. The door closed far too quickly behind Veret for Keith to have any chance of following behind him, and locked again as soon as it was shut. But Keith had waited until Veret had arrived instead of trying to break in on his own for a reason - it was only right now that Keith knew there was no one else expected to come by. And so, it was now that he had the chance to try to get that fucking door open. Keith had faith he could do it. He'd broken into a dozen buildings of all levels of security by this stage in his life.

Waiting a few minutes to make sure that whoever was inside was far enough away from the door to not hear him, Keith slowly approached. The lock, like most every lock and door in all of space, was electronic. Which was a shame because padlocks Keith already knew how to break into in like two minutes, but this bullshit was more Pidge's territory. Keith's first instinct was to just stab the lock pad and see what happened, but apparently Shiro had managed to be a good influence on him after all because he wisely gathered up the patience required to examine it instead.

It looked more like a keypad that any kind of bio-scanner, which boded well for Keith. Even this much he'd broken into before back on Earth, although not without being greeted by an alarm upon success. Keith would just have to make sure he had more… finesse this time.

He didn't know what the buttons on this thing said, but he wasn't sure he needed to find out. Maybe if he pried off this panel with his knife to get to the wiring underneath… The edge of his knife slipped easily between the plastic cover and the wall. Keith was just about to use the leverage to pop it off, but he stopped with his blade still halfway in the wall, tensing at the feeling that he might perhaps no longer be alone.

"Well, I'll be an elchor's ass," a deep voice said from just behind Keith's back, and his blood froze solid in his veins. "Someone really DID show up. I guess Everett was actually telling the truth, after all." Slowly, degree by tiny degree, Keith turned his head, dread swelling with every long millisecond that passed as his eyes finally crawled up to land on the mildly intrigued violet face of a Galra soldier. And then, his eyes craned the last bit down required to see the barrel of the laser rifle pointed directly at Keith's skull.

There was no way to pry his weapon from the wall it was jammed in faster than the Galra could pull his trigger. Keith slowly raised his hands in the air in a nonthreatening surrender, eyes trained on the knife he was going to need to figure out how to get back in his hands.

There was no time. The soldier looked pleased at his lack of resistance, and prodded the back of Keith's head lightly with his gun. "Good," he crowed, deep voice grating into Keith's ears. "Let's step inside, you and I."

Upon his unceremonious march inside, Keith was faced with the realization he'd put himself into pretty much the worst situation possible. The room beyond the door was tiny, looking like some sort of staff break room from a shitty warehouse. It was barely larger than his entire shack, and the major portion of space was taken up by small tables covered in unidentified bottles and dirty plates from old meals, with four plain chairs scattered around the small space. Chairs which were of course, occupied by two more Galra soldiers and naturally even Veret fucking Everett.

He grinned at Keith, giving him a friendly wave hello. Keith's entire body shook with the effort of restraining himself from trying to stab his stupid fucksquid face.

"Well if it isn't my lovely friend Mars, how nice to see you! Although to be perfectly honest I was actually expecting you a lot sooner. " Veret smirked, gesturing towards the two men sitting with him. "You've made these poor gentlemen wait with me nearly a full week! I mean, they were starting to think I was just leading them on when I said I could get them a Paladin of Voltron. Thanks for showing up, you really saved my reputation there!"

The space was too small with too many enemies, Keith had no room to maneuver and the only door was behind him. There was, at this moment, nothing he could do without being killed. Keith didn't know if he hated himself or Veret more, but couldn't stop himself from gritting out the question, "How?"

Veret grinned, and the other two soldiers looked like they were trying to decide if they were gonna need to get their asses out of their chairs for this while he gleefully prompted, "How…?"

Keith was shaking with the white-hot curl of suppressed rage, and the Galra behind him adjusted the aim of his gun to press in between his shoulder blades. "How did you know," he bit out. "That I wasn't who I said I was?"

All four of Veret's eyes turned to lock on Keith's. "You gave me back my wallet," he said simply.

Keith blinked, actually a bit startled. Of all the things to have given him away, it was that ? "Seriously?"

"Didn't even take anything out of it, I checked." Veret turned down the douchiness in his facial expression so his smile was more matter-of-fact. "Which meant you were either actually flirting with me, which seemed pretty unlikely considering I can feel your disdain for me roiling off of you like a miasma," he wiggled his fingers in a gesture that was apparently supposed to be pointing at Keith's general aura. "Or, that you were a lousy thief. Which you couldn't be to have gotten it off of me in the first place!"

Keith's eyes squeezed shut so tight the angry draw of his eyebrows was actually painful, spots floating behind his vision. Himself. He was definitely more angry with himself . All that fucking work only to be done in by some sort of… natural impulse to not be a terrible person, son of a bitch !

Veret continued to be the worst person ever to exist. In an obviously consoling tone, he added, "But, you were convincing enough that I was really only about eighty percent certain you were a paladin. That other 20% was high enough for me to have to set up this little… introduction, instead of sending them right to you guys at your stall!" a pause. "Well, no. I couldn't have done that anyway, that's bad business. The MGE takes first priority, after all."

When Keith reopened his eyes it was to find the Galra looking restless. One of them, with thick eyebrows and too-round glasses that made him look a bit like some kind of bizarre alien Groucho Marx, stood up out of his seat. "So what are we supposed to do with him, now? It'll take a mile of red tape before we can get any word of this to Zarkon."

"Well first you'll need to find the other one," Veret offered easily, gesturing towards the door. "There's no way this guy's alone, there's got to be at least one more paladin floating around as his backup."

There was conviction in this statement, enough for Keith to be taken aback. Except that he was alone. He probably shouldn't be, because a sudden heavy weight in his stomach informed him he could have maybe at least tried to tell someone about his suspicions about Veret and that maybe this whole thing would have gone ten times smoother if he'd just fucking thought to bring Pidge along. She'd have even believed him, probably! Was Keith capable of fucking handling nothing in his entire life right now?!

The Galra all exchanged glances with one another. Groucho nodded his head towards the door, making eye contact with the guy still standing behind Keith. And, fortune finally twisted just the tiniest bit in Keith's favor, and it was Chico with the gun to his back who stepped outside to check to see if there was another person around.

A person whom they would not find. And the other two Galra were not currently holding weapons in their hands, even if they could draw them in a moment. That moment was all Keith needed. Two barely on-guard Galra and a fucksquid spy who didn't like to get his own hands dirty? Keith had taken down bigger threats before he even got to space.

The door swung closed after the Galra, and Keith was moving by the time the lock closed with the sound of tiny metallic click.

He dove forward, ducking low enough to reach the underside of the largest table and kick it over, flipping the table sideways and bowling the heavy wood into the lap of the still-sitting Harpo Marx, successfully trapping him between it and his chair long enough for Keith to draw his bayard.

The solid weight of his sword materialized at the end of his wrist as comfortable as an extension of his own arm, and Keith felt like his life had just snapped out of a long dream and back into the sharp focus of reality. Groucho had just enough time to draw his own sword to meet Keith's attack, barely blocking before Keith was pulling back to spin around, sliding easily behind the Galra to deliver a stab that only cracked his armor and slid off it to cut a bit at the underside of his arm. Keith was already moving out of the way by the time the Galra turned around to slice at the air where Keith had just been, quickly taking a detour to stomp on the back poor Harpo's head, who had only just barely managed to get to his knees by then and immediately broke his nose on the floor.

The shining blade of Groucho's purple sword clanged against Keith's bayard, vibrations ringing from the point of contact all the way down Keith's spine. He was big but not very fast, the type Keith was best at dealing with, and Keith chanced a quick glance to the side to make sure Veret was still watching idly and not planning some kind of sneak attack. When the Galra drew his sword back to try for another strike Keith didn't bother to meet it, ducking low again to slide past his legs, extending the blade of his sword out as he past him to slice at the gaps in armor between his thighs and calves at the vulnerable side of Groucho's knee.

When Groucho went down, Keith didn't get out of the way fast enough to avoid the Galra's fist swiping at his face now that they were nearly at the same level. The blow hit Keith's cheek hard, sending him rolling across the floor to slam bodily into a chair, and the pain rang in his eyes and made his eyes swim for so long that by the time he recovered both of the Galra soldiers had, too.

Keith grabbed the leg of the chair he'd just landed on and flung it out, not caring if it hit either target as long as it distracted them enough for him to roll back into a standing position. Luck had his side again when Groucho used his sword to cut it in half before it hit his face, because one of the severed legs flew to hit his friend in the already-broken nose and he dropped his freshly drawn polearm to clutch at his face as he yowled in pain.

The yell startled the bespectacled Galra into glancing at Harpo, and Keith grasped that opening to launch another attack, trying to take down Harpo and keep him that way with a broad swing of his bayard towards his head. The Galra with the polearm wasn't fast enough to do anything but Groucho tried to intercept, kicking at Keith and throwing off his balance enough that the angle he attacked from changed and it was the flat of his blade that smacked against Harpo's temple instead of the slice to his throat he'd been aiming for.

Either way he went down, and Keith flipped around just fast enough to see the remaining Galra's sword as it came swooping towards his torso. There was no way to get out of its path up down or sideways, so Keith brought up his bayard in a block with one hand, palming his left hand to against the flat of his blade to help brace for the impact.

The strike was too powerful, bowling Keith over and sending him rolling across the floor again. He pushed himself onto his elbows to find Groucho already coming at him, but his injured foot wasn't enough to keep him upright during his attack and he ended up pinning Keith to the ground instead of the sword attack he had been trying for. He still had the upper hand, and the straining and creaking noise to his left went unnoticed in favor of the Galra on top of him and fitting his sword between them to aim at Keith's neck -

The Galra was suddenly gone, he and Keith looking at each other with equally surprised eyes as Groucho was yanked backwards about two feet away from Keith. He looked up to see Veret holding the Galra by the shoulder, and before the words "What the fuck?" could even come close to exiting his mouth an uncomfortable cracking noise brought everyone's attention to the door perfectly occupying the space on the left in between Keith and Groucho.

"Yeah, that lock's probably already broken," Veret observed just as the door burst open, flying on its rusty hinges to bang against the wall as its lock failed it as promised, and two figured came tumbling into the room and drowning out the second half of Veret's sentence. Chico the Galra raised himself up onto his elbows, and underneath him was the one person Keith probably should have expected but really, truly had not.

"Lance?!" Keith balked, scrambling to his feet.

Lance didn't look at Keith in favor of the Galra on top of him, wiggling out just enough leeway for himself underneath the heavy body pinning him to the floor to pull back a wind for a punch. The jab was aimed directly at Chico's shoulder, or more precisely at a bulletwound already inflicted in that area. The punch landed with the sickening squelch of blood splattering on the floor, the Galra clutching at his injured shoulder with one hand and leaving Lance enough room to shove him off and stumble the three paces away to where Keith was, barely grabbing his bayard on the way upright.

"FUCK!" Keith was still staring at Lance in his surprise, watching as the other paladin scanned the small room with a panicked, twitchy expression, eyes darting quickly in between the three Galra soldiers in varying states of battle readiness and Veret. "Are you kidding me, two more?! God damn it, Keith, this is exactly what I fucking knew would happen!"

That snapped Keith out of his dumbfounded shock back into the room. "You kn -" he clicked his tongue, back to watching Groucho as he and Chico apparently did about the same thing Keith and Lance were doing by taking stock of the situation now that the odds were about evened. "What are you doing here, Lance? Did you follow me?"

"God damn right I followed you!" Lance shouted, locking eyes with Chico as they both unconsciously aimed their rifles at one another. "You think i don't know how you think by now?! The minute I heard you were getting involved with this piss stain," he gestured his free not-on-the-trigger hand grandly towards Veret standing against the wall and grinning like this was the best show he'd ever been treated to, "I knew you were about to do something stupid and reckless and get into a fight! And LOOK!" An even grander sweep of his arm. "GALRA! Because you had to mess with probably the one person on this whole fucking planet that even CAN lead our enemies to us!"

Wait, was that why Lance had been mad at Keith that night? Keith shook his thoughts away from their mutual inability to communicate, instead snapping, "Yeah, but I was right !"

"So was I!" Lance shouted back.

Keith grit his teeth, the slowly dawning realization that he had just dragged Lance into this to potentially also be killed roiling chaotically in his gut, bringing up a newfound fear of this situation where before there had only been the manic rush of adrenaline. "How long have you been following me?"

Eyes still locked on the arguing pair of paladins, Groucho slowly bent down to grip the collar of the unconscious Harpo, dragging his body from the middle of the room to be dumped near a table where he wouldn't be stepped on. Lance was still locked gaze-for-guns with Chico, even as he ground out an annoyed, "Only tonight. I knew something was up when you actually stuck around the ship long enough to eat a full meal."

"So you just decided to follow me?!"

"Well what else was I supposed to do?!" Lance's voice cracked, bordering on desperate. "It wasn't like I could just fuck off and let you do something so stupid by yourself! If the only thing I can do when you decide to run off and get yourself killed is to follow and get killed with you, then that's what I'm gonna fucking do!"

The words shook Keith. Fuck. Fuck this was too much, he was feeling too many things right now. He was angry and terrified and elated and desperate, he couldn't even comprehend the idea that Lance, even in the middle of a fight so blizzardous cold they refused to even speak to each other, was still worried enough about Keith to dive side by side with him right into an obvious trap. And he very well COULD die, and it would be Keith's stupid fucking fault, and this was just new levels of overwhelmed completely unthought of before.

His hands shook around the grip on his sword, and Keith tightened his hold on it. Capable of only one form of communication right now in his mental turmoil, Keith screamed. Fuck this. Everything else could wait until they'd gotten their asses out of this stupid goddamned room. He tossed out a hand signal to Lance that Keith could only hope he caught, lunging at Groucho's already injured knee to try to sever the tendon the rest of the way. His signal was read perfectly because a shot of laser fire took out the Galra's other knee, distracting he and Chico both from Keith's swift dive and the tall Galra fell to the floor with an agonized yell in the form of an angry explicit curse, the slice going clean through deeply enough that he wouldn't be standing back up.

Groucho was short range and their attack had successfully grounded him, which meant as long as Keith stayed out of the reach of his sword he'd be no threat at all. Chico Lance could probably take care of on his own, he'd already gotten one good shot in to start and Keith was already too occupied by Veret muttering "Oh for fuck's sake," to give it much more concern.

Hearing that more exasperated than worried tone, Keith immediately realized he'd fallen for his bullshit again. Everything this guy did was calculated, and once he delivered Keith to the Galra he could have stepped out of this room and out of the line of fire at any moment.

Veret, he saw, was pulling out a blade of his own now. It looked small, only about the size of a standard bowie knife, but the look on Veret's face was the calm and determined expression of a man who knew exactly what he was doing, even if he didn't particularly feel like doing it.

This bastard wanted to be underestimated. Gave the impression of a useless douchebag so that people wouldn't want to look any further underneath to realize he is also a giant prick while he's at it. And if you got far enough to realize how manipulative he is, the last thing you'd expect is a close range fight out of him. Which meant it had to be his specialty, right? Keith may have passed emotional trainwreck to classify as an entire space station exploding, but he wasn't stupid and if there was one place his head was its clearest it was here .

Veret's blade started to vibrate in his hand, flickering into a purple light of white-hot plasma like a Galra blade. Just how far into it with them was this guy? Keith locked eyes with him, each with his weapon drawn and waiting to see where the other would strike from. Somewhere unseen even in this small space, either Chico or Lance fired their gun at the other.

Keith didn't look to see who it was, using the shot like the starter pistol of a race and launching himself towards the squid. Knowing a direct attack would be too risky Keith stepped to the right at the last moment, circling around to Veret's side to aim a swing of his bayard there. But Veret turned around even faster than Keith could get behind him, meeting the strike with his own blade easily and deflecting it to slide away into a harmless point towards the ground.

Fuck, it was worse than Keith had thought - fast and agile was the very same fighting style Keith himself had, without the benefit of apparent bonelessness Veret was working with. And the stupid second set of eyes on his temples, and the fact that Keith was still worried about Lance who was still audibly fighting the remaining Galra soldier in the background!

Keith shook off the impending panic. This was nothing. Lance was perfectly capable and Keith had attacked Zarkon him-fuckinself directly, this fucksquid was nothing more than a goddamned pebble in his shoe.

Veret was, for some reason, flipping his knife in the air and catching it by its handle in small randomly-timed flicks of his wrist. The shine of the blade's light spinning in the air for half a second every so often was almost blindingly distracting, so maybe the reason wasn't hard to figure out after all. But either way it left that second-or-so window where Veret had no blade in his hand, and Keith was eager to exploit it; he feinted to make it look like he was going in for another sideswipe, instead moving close enough to one of the fallen chairs to kick it at Veret's surprised torso.

His instinct was apparently to try to duck it by going low, but even the boneless fold of Veret's body wasn't swift enough to avoid the chair completely and it ended up nailing him in the head instead of his stomach, which was pretty fucking great as far Keith was concerned. He landed on his back with a surprised yelp, and Keith was not about to waste the opportunity, no matter what ominous thumps and cries form Lance's voice might be ringing behind his shoulder.

Knocking Veret off his admittedly wobbly feet turned out to be a bad move tactically. When Keith was close enough to aim another blow at him one of Veret's legs shot out like a snake, three tentacles wrapping firmly around Keith's ankle and immediately jerking upwards to bowl him onto his own ass, the leverage from Keith's fall even helping Veret to get back upright to stand over Keith on his free leg.

For a moment there was just that. Veret standing over Keith with both of them still armed, silver-blue eyes trained on Keith while the yellow ones flickered to the other side of the room where Lance and Chico were. All four of Veret's eyes narrowed, the ones on Keith even tearing away to look over at the spectacle and Keith couldn't even think to use that time to his advantage because it was more important he crane his head around to see what exactly had Veret so preoccupied.

Horror seized Keith at this sight. Lance was down on the ground, impossible to tell if he was awake or unconscious because of Groucho's large hand pinning his head to the floor by his face. Standing above them both was Chico, gun trained on Lance and Keith didn't have time to try to panic at the sight because Veret was moving, and Keith was whipping back around to see Veret pulling a previously unnoticed pistol from somewhere in his coat. "You can't kill them yet if you don't know where their fracking robot is, morons," he was hissing as he leveled his gun into an aim.

Keith's heart stopped dead in his chest, watching the barrel of the gun as it moved over him. Over him, past him, away from even the Galra to point towards the debris of one of the knocked over tables. In the instant before Veret pulled the trigger Keith watched the gills on his neck slam closed like shutters.

A crack of breaking glass was the only warning before a wispy chartreuse smoke was filling the room, Veret putting his gun away and stepping off of Keith casually like the paladin was no longer any concern of his. Chico and Groucho both blinked in confusion at the sudden gas quickly filling the room, before Groucho was cursing and hitting a button on the neck of his armor that brought up a the clear bubble of a helmet protecting him from breathing in the polluted air. "Gorram it, Everett, what do you think you're trying to pull here?!"

No one else in the room was as fortunate. While Veret who apparently did not need to breathe at all casually replied, "You're lucky I planned ahead to bring that. Dead pilots are easy to replace, you've got to be alive to give anyone information." Keith's vision began to swim and blacken at the edges. Despite his best efforts not to breathe any of the gas in he was losing the battle to remain conscious, a fight he watched Chico lose as he toppled to the floor next to Lance.

Keith could barely see through the blur his vision had become, blinking heavy sleep from his eyes as he tensed his right hand, trying to feel the grip of his bayard under it. He couldn't feel it - his limbs were going numb, fingers feeling like dead wood weighing down his entire arms. Even the panic was slipping from his mind, thoughts fuzzing out as his eyelids finally gave out and closed off the rest of the world from his vision.

It may have been the gas making him a little bit high, but the last thought that managed to crawl its way through Keith's mind before the lights went out was ' _I should have just fucking brought Pidge._ '


	6. In Health

AN: Yeah so…. All together this fic is just gonna. Go ahead and ignore… All of season 2, basically. Or in fact, since I'm already out of canon, let's just say this is between seasons one and two. Pre-S2, so I can just... finish this the way it's planned. Which, you may have noticed there is YET AGAIN an extra chapter added, and I am sorry I can't pace for crap, but hey. This update would have taken FOREVER if the chapter had ended up as long as I meant it to be. Winner winner chicken dinner?

Chapter Text

Keith came to consciousness slowly, his mind resisting wakefulness with the stubborn iron-heavy drag that could only be from a drug-induced nap. There was a sharp pain tugging around his wrists that helped him ground himself, using the discomfort as an anchor to pull himself back to reality as he slowly pried open his eyes. It took a while for his vision to focus, the image of something very large very close to his face swimming in his eyes for a moment, before he realized that it was some kind of thick pole and his forehead was in fact pressed right against it.

He leaned back only to find himself impeded, and suddenly all of the last traces of drug-stupid wore out of his system all at once because Keith was chained by the wrists to a metal pipeline running from ceiling to floor. He jerked upright, both relieved and horrified to see the unconscious figure of Lance slumped over on the other side of the pipe. When Keith shifted his hands to try to figure out how much leeway he had on the handcuffs, it was better than he'd expected. His arms were wrapped around the pipe with his wrists both bound on the other side, looped over the similarly bound arms of Lance, whose own hands were resting in Keith's lap. That meant he could stand up, even if Lance wasn't able to safely do the same without his handcuffs hitting Keith arms. Still, that gave them both the entire range of the pole's circumference to maneuver in hopes of getting themselves off of this thing. Assuming he could even wake Lance up in the first place, anyway.

"Lance," Keith tried, shuffling a bit to the right so they were closer to being side-by-side and Keith could properly see his neck to be able to check his pulse. It was slowed with unconsciousness but otherwise strong, and Keith felt his body drain free of half his tension just from the confirmation he was still alive at all.

A firm shake to Lance's shoulder and a louder try at his name even had him slowly stirring, and when Lance opened his eyes and responded with a low confused, "Keith?" the relief that washed through him was so intense Keith's spine gave up on him.

He slumped forward, head falling to rest on Lance's thigh with a quiet shudder of his body. "Thank god," he sighed, and he was afraid it probably sounded as broken as he felt right now. "Thank god, you're alright." No brain damage, no drug coma, no spine injury. Lance was alright, and they were together, and… And probably in the middle of an underground Galra base right now. Because of Keith. Because Keith had run head first into a trap like always, and like always it was poor Lance who was the one stuck chasing after him and cleaning up Keith's stupid, stupid messes.

"Keith?" Lance said again, groggily. "Where are we? Did I get handcuffed again? I'm getting really tired of being tied up, it's totally ruined for me as a kink by now."

Keith forced himself to sit back up again. Clarity was returning to Lance's eyes, and he watched as Lance craned his head around frantically to look at the small, vaguely rust-colored room around them. "We're trapped again," Keith confirmed tiredly, not ready to dredge up the motivation necessary for an escape attempt just yet. After a moment of fiddling with his own restraints Lance wound up looking at Keith, and… Then that was it. There they both were, handcuffed to a pole together, and looking at eachother in the eye for the first time in nearly two weeks.

Lance didn't look good. It wasn't just the giant bruise taking up most of one of his cheeks, or dried blood stain at his temple, either. He looked tired, and he was staring at Keith with this lost look on his face like he couldn't even imagine the right words to say to him; eyes tight with worry, mouth pinched into a frown. Keith didn't know what to say, either, but he knew he had to think of something. The tension was way too awkward between them as it was, there's no way either of them would be able to focus completely on getting out of here if they didn't manage to clear the air between them.

Actually, he was lying. Keith did know what he had to say, he just didn't want to do it. But right now Keith wasn't just tense, he was massively overwhelmed, guilt and terror and regret and anxiety and paranoia and yes, even hope, affection and relief because having feelings that didn't contradict themselves would be just too easy for Keith's complicated lifestyle. All of it, all at once, and it was just too god damned much . Lance was still looking at him with that awful look like he'd already been broken and had nothing left for Keith to take and suddenly Keith found that there was no way to keep any of it inside himself anymore. His mouth was opening whether he wanted it to or not and everything he'd been trying so hard to keep contained was pouring out like guilt tsunami.

"I'm _sorry_ ," Keith heard the broken crack of his own voice well enough to understand why Lance's eyes widened in surprise at the sound of it. "I'm so sorry, it's completely my fault we're in this. I didn't - I could have told anyone at any time what I was doing or what I suspected, I could have brought you or Pidge or Shiro but I didn't even CONSIDER it. I just tried to handle everything on my own like I always do, I don't know how to do this Lance. I don't know how to be close to people, I don't know how to rely on people, I don't know how to handle it when people care about me and I just freaked the hell out and tried to run from everything and look where I got us for it!" Keith balled his hands into fists. Lance's jaw hung open, mild panic swimming in his eyes. He still wasn't saying anything though, stunned into silence by Keith's outburst and he couldn't stand to keep looking. Keith's eyes were hot and itchy, and he squeezed them shut with one last croak of "I'm so sorry."

"N-no!" Lance shouted quickly, intercepting him with a rattle of his handcuffs like he'd jerked his hands trying to reach for Keith. "It's totally my fault too! I knew why you were being weird but I didn't try to get Shiro or Pidge or anyone either, just…. Followed you like a moron because I was too worried to think straight." When Keith peeled his eyes open again Lance still looked kind of fucked up and broken, but… probably more in the same way Keith himself was. "Both of the fights we had _I_ started, I'm insecure and needy and I'm the one who should be apologizing to you!"

The breath caught in Keith's throat, and he had to blink clear his suddenly blurry vision as he quickly shook his head. "I definitely started the first one, and the second one only got as bad as it did because of me!" He choked a little, remembering what he had said that night and the look on Lance's face he'd gotten in return. "I didn't- That Shiro thing, you know I didn't mean that at all-"

Lance interrupted, "No no, hold on, I escalated before that with what I said about your shack, you were only-"

"We were both escalating, and, look, you had no way of knowing that was gonna set me off. The Shiro thing, I only said it because I k now about you being insecure and I knew it would be the fastest way to hurt you."

There was a moment where Lance didn't respond in words, just a strange little punched out sigh like he was holding two bags of groceries and had just dropped the keys to his front door. "Well," Lance's voice was tired now, "you certainly called that one right. I guess we both said stupid mean things." He drew in a breath of air, frowning at Keith and saying worriedly, "Look, you gotta… I can't... You gotta stop crying man, it's kind of freaking me out here."

"I'm not crying," Keith denied sharply, and then ruined it with the need to sniffle his nose from running with a nasally snort.

"You - you kind of are though, I can literally see your tears-"

"I'm not crying, YOU'RE CRYING!"

"Not yet, but if you keep going I'm pretty sure I'll catch up," Lance said almost nervously, eyebrows pinched high on his forehead in a worried frown.

And… jesus. This was all so ridiculous, wasn't it? A distorted giggle burst out of Keith's throat, and he tried to jerk his shoulder up enough to wipe his face with his shirt. He didn't quite make it with his arms so awkwardly hooked around the metal pole they were strapped to, and he looked up to see Lance nod towards the sleeve of his own coat in silent offer. Keith accepted without hesitation, burying his face into Lance's shoulder next to him and sniffling into the fabric.

"Did you just blow your nose on my coat?" Lance accused, but his voice was clearly light with unsuppressed laughter.

Keith wiped his face on the coarse material. "...Maybe."

Lance laughed for real this time. "You're so gross, oh my god. Why does this make me happy, I should hate you so much right now."

Keith met him in a small laugh, before sitting upright again away from Lance's arm. For all he said that that made him happy Lance still wasn't smiling, and Keith looked at him expectantly long enough for Lance to speak again. "About that," he started finally. "It's not that I don't trust you or think you're gonna leave me for Shiro or anything. I guess I'm just afraid…" His frown was heavy, and he looked away from Keith's eyes. "That whatever it is you feel for him, it's stronger than... whatever it is you feel about me."

Ah, shit. "That… I understand perfectly." Keith swallowed hard. "I kind of knew that was how you felt, which is why I didn't know how to reassure you about it." Fuck, he'd wanted to avoid this conversation since he still didn't know the right words that would actually make it better for Lance. "The only thing I could come up with was 'Shiro's too important for something as petty as romantic feelings,' which I figured probably wouldn't help. At all."

Lance's eyes rolled to the ceiling like he was praying for help. "Yeah, you definitely called that one right," he said tightly. "Not helpful in the least bit."

The silence was weighed down with awkwardness again, and all Keith could think to do was honestly admit: "I did have a crush on him, back not long after we first met." He wasn't looking at Lance, determined that he probably didn't want to see his reaction. "I even told him. Some kind of… pathetic spontaneous love confession blurted out on accident. He was nice about it at the time but I could tell how hard he was trying not to laugh." Even just remembering it brought up a white-hot surge of humiliation roiling in his stomach. "And the worst part is it was only two years ago, so I can't even brush it off as being just a stupid kid yet."

"But, you did have romantic feelings for him?" Lance's voice more hopeful than resigned, and Keith looked up at him as he confirmed.

"Yeah, at first."

Oddly enough Lance's reaction seemed to be overt relief, relaxing the tense line of his shoulders. "So then, you've already gotten over him," Lance said like the words had lifted a huge weight off of his chest.

Keith blinked. "Thats a good thing?"

Lance leaned back, the cuffs clinking against the pole noisily when he fell back too far and got caught on his own wrists. "Well yeah, that means it's already done with. I mean I guess if anyone's amazing enough to fall in love with twice it's probably Shiro, but I have a feeling I'm safe on that."

Keith let himself relax too, not having expected that admission of all things to be the one that made Lance feel better. "Don't worry, he's definitely not," he said in a sigh. And then, because they weren't done here yet and Keith was determined to keep trying until things were right, began again. "Shiro can't… Shiro can't do the things for me you can anyway."

"Seriously?" Lance looked, at once, both interested and doubtful. "Like what, exactly?"

Keith bit his lip, trying to find the right words. "Well I just mean… Shiro can calm me down when I'm mad and cheer me up when I'm depressed, sure, but. He can't make me _laugh_." Lance was looking at him now, his gaze heavy and searching, watching Keith like he was waiting for him to lie. "He… Shiro is someone I look up to, you know? But that means I'm too self-conscious around him, I care about what he thinks of me too much to be able to really… relax. At least, not the way I can with you." He looked up to meet Lance's eye again. "You're the only person who... Being around you is almost as comfortable as being by myself. If that makes sense."

Lance blinked a few times, before he broke out into a dry smile. "Actually, considering it's you, that does make sense. I guess I'm honored?"

Keith let himself almost return the smile, adding a watery, "And I've definitely never cried in front of him, either." His smile grew strained and wry. "In fact I think the last time I cried at all is when he… Was after Kerberos." Other than the fight a few days ago, but admitting he cried after that was probably not the greatest way to make the two of them get over that night.

"And you barely even cried at all," Lance's voice was warmer now than Keith had heard from it in weeks. "How do you even cry pretty, that's not fair. I always start sobbing and snotting up like a little kid."

Keith laughed, small and exhausted. And because he couldn't reach for Lance's hand at that moment, just leaned sideways to rest his head against Lance's shoulder instead, needing the physical contact more than anything right now. Lance bowed his neck to rest his head against the top of Keith's, and they let the quiet settle between them into something more comfortable. They let that silence continue between them for what might have been a minute or two, but Keith knew they couldn't stay that way long considering they still needed to get the hell out of here. And before then, while they were already talking, Keith needed to know one thing.

He lifted his head from Lance's shoulder, looking him in the eye seriously. "But… I know I'm the one who started avoiding you in the first place, but I did try, Lance. Why did you..." He closed his eyes for a moment to draw in a deep breath. "When I tried to get close to you again, why did you start pushing me away?"

The tense line of Lance's brow was more confused this time. "When you tried to get close?"

Keith frowned, unable to keep himself from letting his eyes dart away. "The night we were watching that movie… When I tried to talk to you you literally shoved me off."

The twist to Lance's expression managed to convey both surprise and utter bafflement at the same time. "You mean when you went for my dick? That was you trying to talk to me?" He squeezed his eyes shut, a punched out noise deflating him as he groaned, "Oh my god, of _course_ it was you trying to talk to me. Because you're Keith, and you don't use words." His head fell to hang morosely. "God, we are so **bad** at this!"

That was the understatement of the century. He didn't voice the thought, just waited for Lance to give him a real answer. Lance looked uncomfortable, sighing heavily and avoiding Keith's eyes. "And that… I didn't really want to get into that with you, since it's really a me-specifically kind of problem and not anything that's your fault." He licked his lips, shoulders tense with discomfort again as he stalled for time between words. "You remember that first night we got into Concordia, when I barged into your room?"

Keith nodded, not sure what that night could have to do with anything. That had been the day they had their first argument, but the fight wasn't what Lance had brought up.

Lance could not have looked more uncomfortable if he'd tried. "Before that… I was still so _mad_ at you," he admitted, eyebrows drawn tight in remembered ire. "I didn't want to be, since you apologized, but I couldn't help still being annoyed. And I could smell you in my bed no matter how hard I tried not to think about you, and I've never… I never knew I could _want_ someone and be so mad at them at the same time, you know?" He looked up ahead, staring straight into nothing like he was talking to himself and not Keith. "You drive me so crazy, make me feel things I never even thought I was capable of. Make me madder than anyone ever has in my whole life. I couldn't try to say anything to you about it when I saw how hard you'd gotten off on it, but… " Lance looked back to meet Keith's eye again, distress and remorse painted clear in his expression, and his voice was barely more than a strained whisper as he croaked out, "That night really scared me, Keith. I didn't care about what you wanted or how you felt at all; didn't even bother thinking about it. Like, what if you hadn't gotten totally into it like you did? If you had tried to tell me no, would I have actually listened?"

Well that certainly hadn't been the answer Keith had been expecting. Not sure what on Earth he could say in the face of such an unanticipated concern, he dumbly offered, "Well for one thing, you may be taller than me but you're still not good in close range. I'm pretty sure I could kick your ass if I really needed to."

Lance snorted. "Well, yeah there is that," he agreed flatly. He sighed again, deep and heavy and tired. "But either way, it still freaked me the hell out. So I wanted to avoid having sex until… I don't know, until things felt normal again, I guess."

Keith sagged like a deflated balloon at the realization. "And then our second fight happened," he winced.

"And then that happened instead," Lance agreed.

They really were both terrible at this, weren't they? "Oh my god, Lance, that's… That's not the sort of thing that 'isn't my problem'. You really should have talked to me about this."

A half-bitter scoff. "Yeah, well. We already knew we had a problem with communicating, I guess we just didn't realize how disastrous we really are." They let the conversation die after that, not really sure what else to say.

"So," Lance eventually threw out. "I didn't mean what I said that night, either. It took way too long for you to open up for you to only want me for sex, I was just… Sensitive about the subject and too wound up."

After a few long moments of awkward silence, Keith sighed deeply. "We need to get the fuck out of here."

A matching sigh from Lance. "Yeah…" he agreed. "There's obviously still a lot of shit we need to talk about, but… For now, let's get off of this stupid pipe, please? I'm really not into being handcuffed anymore."

Allowing one last amused snort to huff out of him, Keith made his way to his feet. Lance did the same, and they shuffled their way through an awkward circle around their pole. It became immediately apparent that there was nothing in reach that could be used as a tool, no nearby wall to help with leverage, and of course, their weapons had been stripped of them just in case they thought to root around in each other's pockets for anything useful. After a failed attempt to see if they could just knock the damned pipe down, or even put a stupid dent in the thing the combined power of their entire body weights, they discovered it was all for naught. Which meant the only option they had to work with were the handcuffs themselves.

He hooked his elbow around the back of the pipe so he could look at his own wrists, examining the cold metal of his restraints. No locking mechanism of any kind to pick, but it seemed like the six inches of cable linking the two hands together might have a weakness. He twisted his hands outwards to rest the chain directly against the pipe to check his alignment, shuffled forward to press his chest to the pole and outstretch his arms, then with a brief warning of: "This'll be loud," snapped his arms back as hard and fast as he could. The metallic clang of handcuff meeting pipeline vibrated through both of their entire bodies, leaving a ringing in Keith's ears and exactly zero damage to the handcuffs.

"Ow," Lance said dully, which was a bit ridiculous for him to be the one complaining when Keith had had his entire torso pressed against the stupid thing. "Could we maybe not try that again?"

Considering how little help the move had been, Keith had no trouble agreeing. His wrists were sore where the hard edge of the cuff had bitten into his skin. He looked at the red rings running halfway around his arm, and realized that they'd been able to cut into him like that because there was a little bit of leeway. Just a tiny bit of space between metal and skin, and Keith wiggled and scrunched his hand in attempt to see if he could just slip the cuff off in that tiny bit of space.

Not quite… Keith bit his lip, knowing what came next after this. He had practiced this move a dozen times in his youth, but never needed it in a real-life situation. If he screwed this up he'd only be worse off than they had been before, but… The handcuffs were only attached to each other and not the pipe. All he needed was to get one hand loose and he'd be completely free.

Ah, hell. Looks like he was doing this, then. He glanced over at Lance who had sat back down himself, apparently examining his own wrists with similar intent to Keith's own. He was preoccupied, which was good since if he saw Keith trying to do this he might object to the idea.

Let's see, Keith was mainly left handed, but ambidextrous enough to have a habit of fighting with his knife and throwing things with the right hand instead. So if he was gonna fuck up one of his hands, the better one in this situation would be… Well, fuck he was left-handed. He only knew how to do this to his right hand, anyway.

Having settled that and therefore no reason left to stall, Keith grabbed his own right thumb. He drew in a sharp breath of air to steel himself, reopened the eyes he'd slammed shut because he actually did need to see what he was doing, and on the exhale of his breath leaving his lungs yanked the finger backwards towards his own wrist.

" _FUCK!_ " He hissed, having forgotten just quite how much that move hurt. Lance was jerking his head up and trying to scramble over to Keith to see what happened, but Keith paid him no mind. First he needed to finish popping the joint out of place, pulling the thumb back outward and folding it down towards his palm.

"What the sh- what did you just do?!" Lance asked frantically, even as he watched Keith fold his dislocated thumb and pinkie finger into each other so he could squirm his hand out of the cuff.

"Got my ass out, what's it look like," Keith muttered, wincing at the hard scrape of metal against his skin as he slid free.

As he'd suspected he might, Lance disapproved. "By breaking your own thumb?! We only looked for a way to get out for like, two minutes how did you go STRAIGHT to 'Let's break our hands to escape?!'"

"I didn't break it," Keith corrected in a grunt. "I just dislocated it. Now please shut up because I still need to pop it back in."

Lance did indeed shut up, and then proceeded to watch in horror as Keith clenched his teeth and snapped his joint back in place. There was a feeling of instant relief cutting through the pain, but not enough to stop the aching throb left behind. He shook the hand out to try to regain a bit of normal feeling, but there really wasn't much he could do about it. Well, that's just how today was going, right? Maybe it'd help distract him from the headache he'd regrown when he tried to break the cuffs on the pipe.

He stood up, and realized all at once how stiff his shoulders had gotten from being strung out around the pipe for so long. Rolling them a bit, Keith went straight for the door, figuring he might as well try the most obvious answer first.

"H-hey, what about me?" Lance stuttered with a rattle of metal that was probably him standing up. "You're just gonna leave me stuck here like this!?"

It didn't budge in the least bit, and there was no real handle or keypad or locking mechanism of any kind. So much for the easy way out. "Well I can't pick your cuffs, they don't have locks. I'll figure something out once I'm sure we can even get out of here," he said shortly, surveying the rest of his surroundings. The room was even smaller than the one Veret had lured them to to fight, more gray and rusted pipes running from wall to wall and floor to ceiling all over the small space. There was even a huge whitish cylinder that looked like a water heater, so this was definitely some kind of boiler room.

Lance made a pitiful noise of protest at the dismissal, and Keith at once realized he'd just done it again. Prioritizing the mission over Lance's feelings. Well, shit, it wasn't like Keith could actually get him out of the damned cuffs, though. Maybe he could say something to make him feel better? Ahhh, fuck, Keith sucked so hard.

"Uhhhh," he started awkwardly, still not turning back around to face Lance yet. Shit, what could he say that would be reassuring? What were some of the things they had just talked about, what could he use from there… "Um," and what was on that shelf over there? Cleaning products, maybe? Wait, shit, Lance… The Shiro thing, that was right - they'd established there wasn't any romantic tension, but Lance's actual concern hadn't really been that in the first place, had it? "I-I just mean, uh…" But wait, that's because there really wasn't a resolution. Keith's feelings for the two of them were way too different, there was no way to quantify one being 'more' or 'less' than the other. What the hell did he say in that case, then? And if he tried fiddling around with those bottles of chemicals would he just poison them both? Wait, how long had it been since he'd actually spoken? "As, as far as that Shiro thing goes, I promise you have more to worry about from Hunk."

"Wait, what? " Lance squawked. Wait. He was right. Why HAD Keith just said that? "How did we even get here from escaping?!"

Keith cringed, turning around to assess the damage. Lance was slacked-jawed like he'd been slapped by a fish, and Keith eloquently offered, "Er, that didn't quite come out… I just meant that..."

"Meant what?!" Lance looked at him expectantly, eyebrows comically staggered in horror. And Keith… had no way of saving this situation.

Ah, fuck it. Keith sighed. Then, with no shame left, threw out his arms and blurted, "Well, have you SEEN the guy?! He's like a wall of beef! One of his thighs is the size of my entire freakin' waist, and yes I noticed because I'm gay and everyone in space is hot."

A strangled-goose noise croaked out of Lance's throat. "You - I - He- My best friend…" His face contorted, one eye twitching as that dying-frog sound once again rattled out of him for a few drawn out seconds, ending with a frustrated bark as Lance crowed out, "And I can't even be mad because you're right! He's like a big sweet teddybear that can cook, and I'm like, so conflicted because normally I'm all for someone appreciating by best bro, but… KEITH!"

Keith shrugged again. "I still like you better?" To be honest Hunk was a little yellow-bellied for Keith's tastes on any kind of long-term level. Would saying that help or hurt right now? This time, Keith was gonna try not saying The Stupid Thing and see how that worked out for him.

Lance rattled and goose-honked for another few moments, jerking an arm towards Keith to try and fail to point at him and instead just banging his cuffs against the pole instead, and declared with absolute righteous indignation, "If I die, you aren't allowed to get together with him for a full year! I demand AT LEAST that much mourning!"

Keith felt a bubble of laughter stop in his throat, and figured if that was his reaction Lance was probably fine. Okay, let's see about getting out of here, then. "I don't know," he said as he turned back to the shelf he hadn't finished assessing. "A whole year seems kind of excessive to me. I feel like I could get over your tragic death in less time than that."

Another indignant squawk. "TRAITOR! Five! Five years mourning! Plus another one for every year we were together before I died!"

The shelf looked unstable, and when Keith shoved around some of the items occupying it he noticed that the whole shelf seemed to be blocking something on this wall. "See now that _sounds_ reasonable, but that means if you die in five years I can't hook up with your best friend for a full ten. How about instead," he gripped two of the metal legs of the shelf set, "we give you a nice six months. That's plenty of mourning time."

"TEN! _TEN YEARS!_ "

"I'll tell you what," Keith started pulling the rack off to the side one hard shove at a time, "we will do you the courtesy of not hooking up AT your funeral. We'll wait til the end out of respect."

"OH MY GOD, KEITH!"

Keith smothered his laughter into his shoulder as he pulled the shelf off to the side, kicking his way around the plastic bottles of cleaners that had fallen off during shelf displacement as he went back to the newly emptied space. Aw fuck yes, Keith had been right - an air vent high up near the ceiling, and it even looked big enough for Keith to be able to worm his way through. "Hey, I think there might be a way out of here if I can get this vent grate off," he tossed out to Lance, running his fingers along the seams where metal met wall to look for a gap.

"Your headband," Lance returned with absolutely zero enthusiasm.

Quire confused, Keith turned back to him with a startled "Huh?"

Lance nodded upwards to signify the general area of Keith's head. "You're still wearing the headband I gave you, you can probably use that."

Keith blinked for a moment, stunned that he himself had forgotten about a knife he'd had on his person literally at all times since he'd gotten it. "You're a fucking genius," he said in a fast breath, yanking the plastic band out of his hair with the brief sensation of his bangs floofing back into his face. He flicked the blade straight and immediately found it thin enough to slip between the grate and wall to start to pry it loose.

"So you've found a way out already," Lance sounded resigned. "Okay, guess I know what that means for me, then."

Keith threw one last quizzical glance at Lance over his shoulder, but went back to his work when he only saw Lance still sitting in the same place he'd left him. He'd deal with figuring out how to get Lance out in a minute, maybe he could find some joint in the handcuffs with the knife he had. Slowly he continued to edge his way around the corner of the grate, climbing up onto one of the nearby metal shelf rungs like a ladder to get at the top of it.

Having edged around the vent he slid the knife in as deep as he could shove it, adjusting his grip to gain leverage as he prepared to pry the vent cover off. Just as he was about to pull there was a clamor of noise behind him, a loud metallic clang and the unmistakable sound of Lance's voice shouting in agony startling Keith into jerking around to look at him.

Lance was doubled over around the pipe, closed eyes already visibly tearing up from the pain. "Lance!" Keith scrambled off the shelf towards him. "What happened, are you okay?"

" _It's nothing_ ," Lance rejected quickly through gritted teeth. "I, uh. I was trying to stand up but my foot got caught on the cuffs and I slammed into the pipe a little." He gave a quick shake of his head, still trembling a little as he nodded back towards the vent. "I'm fine, you concentrate on getting us out of the room."

"If you're sure you're okay." A little wary, Keith went back to his task with minor reluctance. Resteadied his grip on the knife, and with a few hard pushes popped the vent cover off the wall, and even managed to only break off three of his knife's serrated teeth in the process.

And then immediately found out he should not have trusted Lance by himself. Another metal clang, not as loud as before but instead coupled with a muffled curse and a sickeningly familiar snap.

Keith wrenched himself off of the shelf so fast he didn't even land right, falling straight to his knees and clamoring up to run to Lance. "What did you do?! "

Lance had the collar of his trenchcoat clenched in his teeth, tears streaming down his face. It didn't stop him from gritting his teeth into the fabric one last time, and Keith got to the other side of the pipe just in time to see Lance wrench his left hand through the metal loop of his handcuff, red and misshapen with obvious brokenness. He let the jacket fall from his mouth only to whimper miserably, and the first thing he did with the newfound freedom of his arms was snatch his injured hand to his chest to curl around it as he forced the continued stream of pained moaning to stop in his throat with a single choked sob.

"Lance, Lance you gotta give me your hand," Keith implored, one hand on Lance's shoulder to gently coax him back upright. He pulled Lance's arm to draw his hand out, carefully prodding at the injury to test the extent of the damage. Every slight bit of pressure was met with a hiss or wince of pain from Lance, and with resigned horror Keith sighed, "It's definitely broken. Probably snapped at least two metacarpals." Lance didn't respond with much more than a groan, and after another minute of gentle examination Keith declared "I can probably set one of them back into place but I don't think I can help a whole lot without actively slicing your hand open."

"Oh god," Lance gasped. Pulled the collar of his coat back into his mouth and bit around it, "Fine, do it. Do whatever, just do it now."

Not giving either one of them time to think about it, Keith shoved at one of the odd protrusions on the back of Lance's hand, and with a disgusting pop felt something slide back into place. A single miserable grunt and Lance doubled over again, head landing on Keith's shoulder with an exhausted shudder. "Oh, Lance," Keith said softly, the hand that wasn't still holding Lance's landing on his head instead. "What were you thinking? There were other ways we could have gotten you out."

Lance chuckled darkly into Keith's shoulder, sounding about halfway between crying and hysterical laughter. "Apparently not considering it's what you did, too."

Keith felt frustration surge up to mix with his worry, and he had to retrain himself from snapping. "No it is not because I knew how to put mine BACK! Hell if you had just told me you were going to do it I could have dislocated your thumb for you, we didn't have to fucking…"

"Oooh, no," Lance's voice was strained, but he sounded like he had just about collected himself. He lifted his head back up, and used his good hand to wipe at his tear-streaked face as he firmly stated, "If one of us is gonna break my hand, it's gonna be me." Which, what the hell even?

A great urge to yell at Lance welled within Keith, but he forced it down. Instead he settled on hissing, "You have severe problems with self-preservation that we need to talk about," as he peeled off one of his long gloves, the only thing on hand he could think of to use to bind Lance's hand up on short notice. A quick slice of his hair knife had the gloves sliced into two separate ribbons, and he gestured at Lance to give his hand back.

"Said he the kettle," Lance grumbled, but offered out his hand for Keith to start wrapping up regardless. "Do you even know what you're doing?"

"No, but would you rather I do nothing?"

A pause. "No," Lance huffed. "Tie that fucker up."

It only took a minute or two of work before Lance's hand was wrapped up and tied, bound up like a mummy wearing mittens. He wiggled the bound thumb to test its range, and the two of them were faced with the reality that there was really nothing left to do for it but try to escape.

Neither of them moved. Keith wasn't sure exactly why he wasn't doing anything yet considering there'd been little else besides escape on his mind since the instant he woke up bound, but… It felt like there was still some kind of unfinished business. Something that had to be done or said before they could move on, before either of them could hope to concentrate. He just… wasn't sure what it was.

At first it seemed like Lance wasn't sure, either. But he ended up being the first out of the two of them to move, and with a look of something Keith wanted to call resolve he stepped forward to close the last foot of space between them.

When Lance's arms wrapped around his shoulders there was no moment of tense surprise. Keith instantly relaxed into it, eyes sliding closed as his own arms looped low around Lance's waist and he buried his face in his boyfriend's neck. Inhaled a deep breath of air through his nose, melting into the familiar scent of Lance's body, which had worn off of the coat Keith had stolen from him weeks ago now. A feeling not quite like any he'd ever felt before washed over Keith like a slow tide; if he had to put a name to it the closest he could think was 'coming home.'

He didn't know how long they ended up staying there like that. Locked in an awkward hug with their handcuffs digging into each other's backs, too grateful for the warmth of their bodies pressed together to care about the discomfort. It didn't matter, really. They had both needed this for far too long.

"As much as I enjoy the view of your ass in my face, sweetie, if we don't get out of these quiznaking air vents soon I'm gonna suffocate and die," Lance complained mildly from somewhere behind Keith, his voice echoing up and down the small space.

Keith didn't blame him. Barely minutes after they'd crawled into the vent the strange chemical-clean scent of Concordia's city wide air conditioning had started to grow strong enough to be nearly overwhelming, and it became readily apparent that they had somehow gotten themselves wound up in the city's underground ventilation system. This stuff was obviously fine to breathe in small doses, considering it was literally pumped into Concordia's streets, but air conditioners on Earth worked on freon and Keith knew you didn't wanna be strapped in a vent inhaling that shit. "Well if you have any ideas on how to get out of here then by god, man, take the fucking lead." Now it had been nearly a half hour, because every single path they went down so far ended at a dead end or turned into a shaft too small to fit their bodies through, and they'd ended up doing an absurd amount of awkward back pedaling. Once again, Concordia proved to have been designed by the worst video game programmers in history.

A few more minutes of shuffling only to reach another intersection; a fork dividing the path ahead. So far, every intersection they'd taken had been the wrong one. And after what felt like about seven hours of crawling around in here, Keith was starting to think maybe that's because there was no right one. Maybe that boiler room was the only place in the whole fucking city that had a vent shaft large enough to fit through lead directly into it. Maybe they'd die in here like rats and their corpses would pollute the cities air supply with the smell of rotting flesh.

Keith sighed, stopping mid-crawl at the three-way because he wasn't ready to deal with another wrong turn yet. Tapped his fingers absently while he tried to draw a visual map of how many lefts and rights they'd been taking versus how much time they'd spent crawling. Furrowed his eyebrows when something sounded off. Tapped again. Looked down at his hand to see the barely-present wedge of a handle on the far side near the dead-end, and with a grating metallic slide pulled it over to open up a blocked pathway that had been preventing the air from being redirected downward.

"What was that sound?" Lance asked, not quite panicking.

"An idea," Keith answered simply, and without hesitation swung his legs inside and dropped down the hole.

"OH MY GOD, why do you keep doing these things?!"

Lance's voice grew instantly dim as Keith fell, far further than he'd expected. After when felt like fifty feet of dropping, he hit the bottom of the shaft with a loud clatter and sore ankles. Looked down at his feet to see little slots of light where a room opened up below, and before he could say anything back up to Lance heard an echoed thump that could only be Lance jumping down to join him. In a space that was just barely as broad as only Keith's shoulders. "Oh, god Lance, no!"

A loud thump echoed metallically up and down the vent shaft as Lance landed on top of his boyfriend, bowling them both over and and wedging them in an awkward tangle at the bottom. It took a full minute of kicking and scrambling at each other before Lance shimmied himself back up the vent far enough for Keith to be able to sit back up, and after come careful rearranging both of them were… Sort of standing.

"Well, now what?" Lance asked in a tired huff.

Keith looked down at the grate under their feet. "Jump, I guess?"

Lance sighed and planted his palms on the walls to start shimmying his way back up the vent shaft.

It took two more ten foot drops before the grate broke under their weight, greeting Lance and Keith with the beautiful reality that was yet another ten foot drop to the ground.

Lance rolled over off of Keith, flopping onto his back on the floor. "I don't know who I hate more right now, you or myself."

"I think I'm probably the safe bet," Keith sighed. "How's your hand?"

"Hurts like shit," Lance grunted as he pushed himself upright.

Keith gradually raised himself to his own feet. Finally looked around the room, which seemed… Very large and very empty, for the most part. Cold brick-laid walls, probably forty feet apart form each other. The only light in the room was coming from the hallway of the open doorway on one side not far from them. "You gonna be alright if we get into a fight?"

"Yeah," Lance said, and the almost dismissive tone in his voice made Keith inclined to believe him. "I'll just stay behind you until you can get me a gun. I don't really need the hand itself to aim, I can just rest the barrel on my wrist." He shrugged. "Most laser rifles have like, zero kickback anyway."

Keith couldn't help but look at Lance with raised eyebrow, not sure if he was more impressed by his nonchalance or worried. "You seem. Unusually confident, even for you." Or rather, it was something more exhausted than his usual fake bluster.

A dry smile was Lance's answer, and the fact that he didn't even have the energy to boast was definitely more worrying than reassuring. "I broke this same arm when I was thirteen, got into the habit of making sure I could do everything with just my right hand if I need to." Looked around the room himself, craning his head around when he spotted the door. "I can drive a car with just this hand, but so far I've been having less luck trying to pilot Blue."

Looks like Keith wasn't the only one who'd picked up a bit of crazy. Did that make Keith feel better or worse? Better, oddly. Instead of saying something in any way helpful or contributive, Keith found himself asking, "What if you break your right arm and not your left?"

Lance shrugged casually. "I try not to."

Outside the room was a hallway that reminded Keith of a sewer, and if Keith hadn't been sure they were underground before he was now. He didn't know what kind of place this really was though; the lights and occasional conspicuous black orb of a video camera strung through the ceilings told that it had to be of at least some importance, but the only rooms they'd come across had been locked or empty. Mostly it was just these wide hallways, walls arching together into a dome with a long stripe of lights at the apex, an off-white ribbon of brightness cutting through the dark.

They were quiet as they moved. Something about the underground they'd landed in felt heavy, the air thick with the damp smell of earth and the weight of impending danger. The first time they heard the scattered voices of Galra soldiers they weren't even surprised, just stopped and backtracked to try another way around, creeping through the dim stone halls on silent feet.

For many slow, trepidatious minutes this continued, Keith's grip on his tiny knife solid and ready the whole way through. For all the seemingly endless miles of empty passageways this place had, there were very few action options they could take. Probably because the path was so unnervingly straightforward, but time and time again bootsteps and deep voices echoed through the underground around them, forcing them into retreat after retreat to avoid being caught.

The concept of time was nearly incomprehensible at this point. They had no idea how long they'd been unconscious from the drugs, no idea how long they'd been in the vents. They had no way to tell if they'd been wandering around underground for hours, even if Keith doubted it really had been that long. But they were starting to realize that getting into a fight might just be completely unavoidable; Keith had been right in assuming the Galra base was hidden underground, because they were running into more here than they'd seen in the last Galra battlecruiser they'd been in. Okay, that was because they'd passed like six droids and then blew the whole ship up, but still. There was an uncomfortably large number.

Eventually the hallways they'd wandered into came to an end, but not in the usual way. Keith and Lance stopped at the edge of where the tunnel ended, not stepping past the walls they hid in on the increasingly high chance there was someone around that corner on the other side. But they could tell from here that the hall spilled out into room with a much higher ceiling, going on at least thirty feet ahead before the nearest wall and no sign of how far in either direction left or right. Either way, once they stepped out there they'd be visible, which meant they needed to know for sure if anyone was on the other side before they went barreling in unarmed and unprepared.

Keith edged his way to the end of the wall, peeking his head around to assess his surroundings. The right looked like it went on to end with a giant, possibly-spaceship-sized metal door, but it was sealed closed top to bottom and no one was around it. It also didn't look like it could be opened, though. And to the left…

Keith jerked backwards into the smaller tunnel again, backpedaling int Lance's chest and feeling his blood boil to life in his veins. "There are only three," he whispered without stepping away from Lance. "I think we should take them."

Lance bit his lip nervously, stepping around Keith to cautiously edge half his face out to take a look himself. When he came back he was frowning, but he quietly agreed, "This is a better spot tactically than anywhere else we've been today." He met Keith's eye. "Cat and mouse?"

"Well…" Keith wondered if that meant he hadn't seen the one member among the little party outside that wasn't Galra. "I think we might be dealing with a more… cat and cat versus another cat with a couple of mice nearby situation. But since there's still only two of us we might have to just..."

Lance nodded, line of his shoulders tight and right hand visibly twitching from want of his bayard. "Play it cat and mouse anyway," he finished. "Just get one of their guns and kick it back here to me, and I'll lure away whoever I can." He drew in a harsh breath and held it in for a moment, whole body shuddering when it expelled. And then, the disquieting look of hopeless calm was wiped from Lance's face and replaced with with an all-too familiar cocky grin, and he slapped his hand to his chest to only barely quietly declare, "We're gonna wipe those suckers out before they even knew what hit them! Just trust me, babe, everything will be allright!"

The false confidence Lance blustered up when times were hard. He was terrified right now, and needed to pretend he wasn't. Keith smiled a little bit, relieved Lance was back to his usual self. That fear would help keep him alive, and the fact that he was even still trying to reassure Keith was… Well. Reassuring. "Yeah, I do. I believe in you Lance. Watch my back for me."

Lance blinked rapidly, sputtering, "W-what?" with genuine startlement that widened his eyes adorably.

Keith smiled, looking Lance in the eye. "I have faith in you? So. Make sure to be badass enough to make me swoon."

To his great entertainment, Keith noticed that Lance's ears were the first thing to turn red, spreading inwards across his cheeks until his whole face was alight with a blush. "B-but of course!" he choked out in a stutter, glowing like Keith had given him a medal. He collected himself in only a moment, falling serious and putting his good hand on Keith's shoulder. "But be careful out there, okay? If it looks like we're in over our heads we run, even if it means splitting up. Got it?"

Keith nodded, knowing that even humiliating retreats like that were an option in times of war. "I know. I promise I won't try to handle everything by myself." Again. Like how he'd gotten captured today in the first place. Or that time he tried to steal Quintessence. Or set off a bomb in a government facility to try to save Shiro. Or directly attacked Zarkon... Jesus christ, Keith was stupid.

Lance released his hold on Keith's shoulder with one last pat, giving a reassuring smile and cheering, "Go surprise the shit out of them. Stab Veret right in his stupid face."

Keith had to bite the laugh that threatened to escape back into a snort as he turned around to face the open ship bay again. Okay so much for Lance not noticing. "Thank you for understanding," he whispered with a grin as he crouched low and carefully peered around the corner again.

He watched for a moment, assessing how long he'd be able to hide in the shadow of the wall as he moved before Veret spotted him. Drew in one final long, deep breath to steel himself, heart pounding loud and steady in his chest as he fell into the thrilling tempo of battle readiness. And, armed with naught but a plastic headband and thirst for blood, Keith threw himself around the corner and into the dark.


	7. In Sickness

Keith slipped through the shadow like a blade slicing through the dark. He started slowly at first but picked up speed with each step, knowing he didn't have much time before he was spotted, gradually turning his careful lurk into a full on run by the time Veret's eyes widened in surprise. And when the Galra soldiers with him - oh fuck, there were five of them not two how had they both missed three entire people - noticed the sound of Keith rapid approach and armed themselves, Keith made his attack.

He dashed straight towards Veret with single minded intent, knife drawn tight and ready in his grip. As he'd suspected this is exactly what everyone had expected him to do, which is why Keith suddenly pivoted to the right mid-step just one foot away from their old friend Chico, swerving right towards him instead of passing by to Veret. No one reacted in time to stop Keith from jamming the sharp end of his blade into the Galra's neck, watching with collective surprised horror as Chico's body fell to the ground with a heavy thud. The other Galra were starting to scramble together by the time Keith kicked Chico's abandoned gun towards Lance with as much force as he could, so he didn't have time to watch the weapon's noisy slide across the cement floor. Instead he was turning back to see Groucho's sword swinging towards his face. He ducked low out of the way, falling one knee to the ground to dodge the strike only to find himself straight in the line of sights of a second gun. Before he could even think about countering it the quiet laser of a gunshot went off, and the Galra currently locked eyes with Keith exploded blood from the neck and fell to the ground with wide, vacant eyes still open and staring.

"What the ever-loving fuck ," Veret's voice was sharpened with uncontained rage as he spun on Keith. "YOU! You just can't fracking make anything easy, can you?!" His knife appeared from inside his sleeve, spinning naturally into his grip. "Not on yourself, and CERTAINLY not on me!"

There were a few more stray shots from around the corner where Lance was hiding, drawing two of the remaining Galra to chase after him. Keith, still half crouched in an attack stance, looked at the one Galra soldier who hadn't run with them. Groucho hesitated, looking like he had intentions of taking another swing at Keith, but when Lance fired off a few more shots behind them and one of the Galra who'd gone after him swore in a distinctively pained curse he rolled his eyes and ran off to leave Keith alone with Veret.

Veret had all four eyes trained distrustfully on Keith, knife ready and glowing in one hand. The other was doing something rather unexpected though, and Keith watched as one of the metal braces holding his legs together into a makeshift knee fell to the ground with a clatter.

Keith had no idea what the purpose of letting his tentacles fan out freely like Ursula the Sea Witch was, and didn't think he wanted to find out. He tried to utilize the distraction of Veret reaching down to his other leg to launch another attack, but he wasn't fast enough to make a difference.

His blade didn't even come close to making contact. Just as Keith got in range Veret was snapping two of his tentacles out, whipping mindlessly in Keith's direction as the rest of his body tipped forward, and Keith had to leap out of the way of being smacked in the torso. The second knee brace clattered to the ground and Keith watched the tips of Veret's fingers anchor themselves to the floor. The knife that had been in that hand was being spun into the air to be caught by a tentacle, and as Veret settled with one hand on the ground and six tentacles swinging menacingly in the air, Keith figured out pretty quickly why only two legs would have been so limiting to him.

Keith had a plastic knife and no shield. Veret had six tentacles, a knife and a gun.

He could work with this.

Veret's knife glowed for the sole purpose of drawing your eye to it. Keith kept this in mind and didn't let himself be distracted, and when two of Veret's legs whipped out into another strike he brought up his forearm to block them. The move caused the stray ring of the handcuffs he hadn't been able to remove to bang against his wrist, and Keith's eyes widened as opportunity struck him with inspiration.

The knife flipped from one tentacle to Veret's left hand, his weight shifting onto three of his legs to try to take a proper stab at Keith's shoulder. Keith let a smirk scrawl across his face as he flipped the ring of his empty left handcuff into the waiting fingers of his right hand, and the Galran blade bounced off the metal like Wonder Woman blocking a goddamned butter knife.

He stayed on the defensive after that, giving himself time to study Veret's bizarre upside-down fighting style before doing anything stupid. Without the makeshift knees slowing him down, every move Veret made was fluid and graceful with a boneless liquid-ease, but more than that they were fast . He seemed to try to keep one hand anchored on the ground at all times, but from what Keith could tell each one of his tentacles was capable of supporting his entire body weight for a couple of seconds. Anything other than a quick landing or redirect he tried to have at least three feet on the ground for, and so far he'd never used one of his tentacles to attack with the knife. Possibly the limbs weren't precise enough, but either way it meant Keith always knew when to expect an attack from it.

So basically, if Keith could take out four of his legs, he'd probably be fine, right? That couldn't be so hard.

When Keith felt comfortable enough to start his counterattack, he went in high. Veret kept his head low to the ground, so that meant he moved to block Keith's strike with a tentacle. Keith let the limb harshly smack away his knife hand in order to catch it with his left, wrapping his fingers around the thin leg and yanking it towards him. Before Veret could wrest it out of his grip Keith was already plunging his knife into it, his reward a shout of pain and four more tentacles all swiping directly at his face.

They slammed into him hard enough to bowl Keith off of his feet, ears ringing where a hard limb had beat into it. He didn't recover quickly enough to avoid Veret's retaliation, either, seeing the glowing purple of Veret's blade coming at him and raising his arms into a block only in time to suffer a heavy slice to his forearm running nearly to the elbow.

The pain was immediate but familiar, and Keith found it was easier to ignore than he'd dared to hope. Veret hadn't expected Keith not to be bothered either, and Keith was able to twist sideways out from underneath Veret and take out another tentacle with a well-aimed slice of his own.

Veret jerked away from Keith with an angry hiss, drawing his two heavily injured legs back in towards himself protectively. "Gorram fracking twunt ," Veret cursed vehemently, flipping the knife in his hand to change his grip.

The next gambit they both lost. They met in another attack, both trying to twist around to strike each others' backs at the same time. It ended it a bizarre 360° back-to-back maneuver, Veret spinning around to drive his knife into the joint of Keith's shoulder at much the same time Keith jammed his own blade into Veret's ribs. Or, where his rib cage would sit, provided he had one at all.

The pain from his own wound proved a bit too much to deal with. When he felt Veret's knife sinking into him Keith jerked bodily, and the red plastic of his serrated headband finally gave in and snapped in his hand.

Veret reeled back with another curse, half of Keith's knife still lodged in his torso and rage burning in his eyes. A low snarl hissed out from clenched shark teeth and he was moving again, a rapid slither towards Keith that only barely gave him enough time to flip the ring of his handcuff back into the hand of his already-sliced left arm.

The knife was deflected to slide easily into the metal loop, and when Keith felt the blade catch he didn't even think. Just jerked his arm back as hard as he could, yanking the knife out of Veret's hand and sending it flying off to clatter to the ground a few feet away.

Keith and Veret locked eyes instantly, bodies equally ready to dash out and try to grab the only weapon that either one of them had and only waiting to see if the other had already moved first.

That was when they heard it.

A noise so startlingly loud it seemed to shake the very ground underneath them. Or maybe it wasn't that sound itself that did that, but instead the _actual explosion_ that had just torn its way out of the narrow hallway nearby. The hallway Lance had lured those three Galra soldiers into.

Keith and Veret both looked from the smoking tunnel back to each other again.

They broke out running at the same time.

Keith didn't even think about it; just knew he had to get to where Lance was and make sure he was okay. Didn't know or care why Veret was running too; maybe it was because he knew Keith would go and was chasing after him, or maybe it was to check on the Galra soldiers he had been with. Maybe it was just because he'd dropped his wallet down that hall and wanted to make sure it hadn't blown up, but either way he was right there a step behind Keith in the scramble.

Keith paid him no mind, imagination reeling with all of the horrible things that could be waiting at the end of that tunnel. Even when he arrived, swerving around the corner so fast he nearly twisted his own ankle, his panic didn't dissuade. The smoke was thick and acrid, stinging his nose and tearing his eyes enough to impede his frantic search, and the explosion itself had taken out all of the nearest light fixtures in this hall to throw the whole area into shadows on top of it all.

His eye was caught by movement on the ground, the body of a Galran soldier as it shifted up off the floor. Before keith had a chance to panic the soldier flopped bonelessly off to the side, pushed over by a familiar hand as Lance shoved away the half-burnt corpse he'd been using as a shield.

The instant Keith saw that Lance was alive he snapped back around. It was just that moment Veret caught up, having been slowed down behind Keith by his injured legs and lack of endangered boyfriend. Keith let his body move for him, the assurance that Lance was relatively well and un-killed enough for him to hurl a punch into Veret's surprised face just as it rounded the corner.

Veret stumbled backwards, clutching at his face. Keith happened to see it then, during that backwards jerk - the butt of Veret's forgotten pistol tucked into his belt, exposed by the open flutter of his coat.

Keith moved before Veret was even done righting himself, tackling his good left shoulder into his chest. He and Veret both went down, Veret's back hitting the ground with an oddly squishy thud, and Keith's fingers curled around the butt of the gun just as Veret whipped Keith off of him.

Keith landed on his own back, the cement painfully cracking the joints in his spine when he failed to brace for the impact. But the gun was in his hand, and okay yeah, it wasn't like he could actually aim the damned thing or anything, and Veret was too close to him to even give him time to try. But the important thing was this meant Veret didn't have it.

He watched as the robbery registered in Veret's eyes. Having no way to know whether or not Keith was capable of shooting anything, he went low. He rooted his hands to the ground and twisted his entire torso like a dreidel, all six legs whipping out to strike at Keith with the lightning-fast menace of a cat o' nine tails.

Keith leapt backwards out of the way, but Veret was using the momentum from his boneless torsion to already bounce up to face upright again. Not expecting this change of tactic Keith found himself caught off guard, missing it when the tentacle he'd earlier stabbed came whipping out to wrap around the barrel of the pistol Keith still had in his hand.

What happened after that was all too fast for Keith to really understand. Or maybe it wasn't the fact that it happened quickly, but the fact that the next few seconds were pretty much complete chaos. Yeah, the chaos was probably the problem, come to think of it.

He knew, to start, that he and Veret had been in the beginnings of some sort of struggle for the gun. But the first thing to go sideways was the wide-eyed look of sudden panic as one set of Veret's eyes watched something behind Keith's shoulder, and even stranger was when the squid barked out the shouted warning; "Behind you!"

Before Keith could even think to wonder if it was an actual threat or a weak trap, there was the sound of a gunshot. It was the muffled zap of a laser rifle, so at first Keith was confused that he had heard it so clearly. Even more strange considering it ought to have been drown out by how loudly Lance's hoarse, panicked voice was screaming his name.

He even managed to notice the wetness of his own blood before the actual pain kicked in. And then suddenly he was falling to the ground, legs collapsing as the white-hot sharpness of pain narrowed his entire focus to a single point in between two of his ribs, starting from just underneath his shoulder blade and running in a searing line straight through to the front of his body.

He foggily drew together enough logic through the pain to want to know what the fuck had just happened and pushed himself up onto one elbow. He craned his neck around to see, view more upside-down than right side up, following a pair of blurry feet up thick legs. And at the top was Groucho the Galra, looking cindered, worn, and ready to shoot Keith again with the very gun Keith had worked so hard to get to Lance.

Keith wouldn't have had time to react even if he'd been standing. Lance was already behind Groucho with a scavenged Galran polearm, and even from fifteen feet away Keith could see the tunnel-visioned focus of red hot rage burning a light behind his eyes.

Lance swung the staff as if it were a thug's baseball bat, a single angry arc slicing the air to crack against Groucho's temple. The noise of impact was louder than the gunshot that had downed Keith had been, bone shattering under steel so devastatingly that the soldier was probably dead before he even hit the ground.

Lance didn't stay on his feet long, the staff falling out of his hands as the momentum from his own swing carried him to the floor.

Keith was using his injured forearm to prop himself up, and fell in similar time. When he forced himself to sit back up once more the reality that greeted them was ominous and unpromising.

All five Galra soldiers had now been taken out. Keith had been shot and Lance had just exploded. And there stood Veret Everett, with only a plastic knife in his torso to slow him down and a gun held in the delicate grasp of one of his legs.

For a long few moments no one moved. Veret had the facial expression of a deer in headlights, eyes wide and frantically flickering from Keith and Lance to the rubble around them like he'd somehow find an explanation for what had just happened. And then his eyes landed on the gun still twisted into one tentacle.

His body shuddered for a half a second before he dropped the pistol like it was on fire, backing away from it like it was somehow still a threat even from the smoke-blackened floor.

"Nope," Veret said decisively, shaking his head. "I can't - I'm out. I'm not doing this anymore, I just quit."

This seemed… like an odd direction for this situation to turn. Veret had them both completely at his fucking mercy, and instead of killing or properly securing them he was… kind of freaking out?

Veret had buried his face in one hand, shielding his eyes like as long as he couldn't see a problem then no problem existed. "There is absolutely no way you're more useful than you are trouble. I can't - I don't even care anymore. Both of you should go die, and you should do it out of my sight because I am done ."

Keith turned to look back at Lance, who had sat up to watch this bizarre spectacle himself. Veret ignored them both to flop dramatically onto his face on the floor. "No one even has to know I gave up. Your stupid lover's stupid explosion took out the only camera in the hall. I'm just gonna say you guys took me hostage when all these other guys died." He lifted his head to shoot a glare at Keith. "Your stuff, by the way, is WAY BACK in the room right next to where we locked you guys. So good luck with that, jackass, because I don't even know how you got DOWN here from there."

Keith and Lance looked at each other. Then back to Veret, still prone on the ground. There was of course, the chance this was some kind of weird trick, but… Why? They were both already half-dead.

And besides, they really didn't have much choice, did they? The explosion had been too loud and they'd just killed too many men - this place would be swarming with more Galra soldiers in minutes.

Lance was slightly less injured at this point and got to his feet first, helping Keith up. He drew Keith's left arm up around his shoulder to help bear some of his weight, and slowly, they limped off into the maze of underground tunnels.

The adrenaline didn't take long to drain Keith's system after that, and with it came the onset of tremendous pain. He'd been stabbed, shot, and sliced today, and he was still losing blood even now. Even the dizziness from that loss wasn't enough to distract from the pain, and Keith wouldn't have been able to concentrate on the path in front of them even if they'd had any idea of where they were going.

His vision was starting to get blurry, Keith eventually noticed. He was looking at the ground as they walked - why was he looking at the ground? Was it on purpose? Did his head just fall or was it to watch the slow trail of blood crawling its way after him?

"We have to…" Keith started weakly, forced to begin again when his voice was too quiet to be audible on the first two words and cracked on the third. "We have to stop, Lance. We gotta find some way to tie off my bleeding."

Lance looked worriedly at Keith's wound, cursing lowly. "Shit," he agreed, eyes darting back to the path behind them to make sure it was empty as they collapsed against a wall. Keith unwrapped his arm from Lance's shoulder, falling against the cold cement of the wall with one hand pressed on his exit wound.

Keith watched Lance out of the corner of his eye, shrugging off the remains of his half-burnt trenchcoat. "What about you?" He suddenly thought to ask. "You just fought… And you were in an explosion, are you really okay?"

A slightly hysterical laugh tore from Lance's throat. "No, but at least I didn't get shot today," he answered in a high pitched voice. "Well," he swallowed. "Actually I did get shot? Like three times? But they all hit my coat and kind of fizzled off and I THINK it might be lazerproof."

Keith turned his head to gawk at Lance as he attempted to strip pieces of fabric off the tattered jacket remains. "What?"

"My coat," Lance clarified unnecessarily, managing to tear a chunk of sleeve off. "I think it's from a real space pirate. Allura said half of the costume trunks were actually just old prisoner effects, right?" He nodded to Keith to lean forward, and went to trying to wrap the coarse denim around Keith's shoulder to start with the stab wound. "Fucking laser proof," he said again, low and disbelieving like he was saying it only to himself.

Keith immediately thought back to the first instant he saw this ridiculous jacket, and how his first thought was that it was going to get Lance killed. He burst out laughing so hard he nearly split open his bullet wound.

They got moving again as quickly as they could, but it was too late for all the damage that had been done. With every step they were slowing down and Keith could feel Lance's body as it started to shake with exhaustion. He looked down, and without the obstruction of Lance's coattails Keith was finally free to notice his legs.

His pants were in an even worse state than his jacket had been, at least in some respect. They weren't shredded and burned like the coat, but rather instead looked like it had just melted directly onto Lance's skin to merge with it in an ugly red sear. "Lance -" Keith jerked in shock, nearly knocking over both of them. "Lance your legs ! What the fuck are you doing walking?!"

The tightly drawn line of Lance's eyebrow twitched, but he didn't look at Keith or even stop trudging. "Yeah, harder to protect those from grenades than just my head was, it turns out," he gritted through clenched teeth. "And it's not like I have the choice to not walk right now."

God fucking damn it. Stupid useless man trying to bear Keith's weight when he couldn't even walk himself. And he probably hadn't even thought about it, hadn't considered for a second that he should leave Keith to walk on his own to conserve his strength.

Keith huffed out a sigh, deep and heavy. He wrapped his arm underneath Lance's torso where it had been had been hanging between them before. Hefting himself up so he wasn't supported entirely by Lance's weight anymore, Keith fought through the slice in his right arm to use it to help keep Lance's back steady and tall as they moved.

Lance looked at Keith out of the corner of his eye, light surprise coloring his features.

Keith tried not to be embarrassed by the gaze. "It'll be easiest if we bear each other's weight, right?" The very little blood left in Keith's body felt like it was all in his face. "I mean, between us we've got one good arm and two legs. That's gotta be more than enough."

Lance huffed out a tiny laugh and adjusted his grip on Keith's waist. "Heh. Except this time you're the legs and I'm the arm."

The trouble was, no matter how much effort and willpower the two may be capable of displaying in the name of hope reality was much crueler. Time passed dangerously long, getting them no closer to the surface but instead leading them further towards unconsciousness with every step.

If Keith's sight had been blurry before, now it was downright nonexistent. Endorphins had rushed in to drug Keith with painless grogginess, and his vision swam so much there was little left but the same shapeless fog clouding his thoughts.

Oh god. There was no way for them to get out of here, was there? Getting captured by Veret would have been better than this, they were… dying lost in the sewers like rats. Lance… Fuck, Lance. Was there any way Keith could convince Lance to abandon him? His legs were burned, but if he only had to bear his own weight he might still be able to escape…

"Hey, Keith?" Lance's voice was soft with worry, and Keith dreaded the question that would come out. "Do you think…" He swallowed thickly, and Keith forced his sight to focus on him enough to catch the slight tremor in his lip. "Do you think that guy I hit could have survived?"

"...Wait, what?" Keith took a few seconds to respond, not having registered the unexpected question. And also having blacked out for a second, but that had already happened a few times now so was hardly worth mentioning. Blood loss and all that.

Lance's voice was small and shattered when he responded. "I've never… I think I just killed a man, Keith." Finally Keith recognized that slight shake, and Lance continued on with a voice that sounded like it should be sobbing. "I saw him shoot and I saw you fall and… I felt it, Keith." A pause for Lance to gather a shaky breath, and the next words were barely loud enough to be a whisper. " I felt his skull crack open like a fucking melon. "

Keith looked at Lance… or at what he could see right now, anyway. Did he… did he not realize they had all killed hundreds of people by now? The entire battleships full of Galran soldiers they'd ruthlessly annihilated as Voltron? Oh shit. Keith didn't know how to deal with this. Oh fuck, this was bad.

"I killed a man too, tonight," was all he could think to offer, but… But the thing was…

Keith wasn't bothered by it.

He had stabbed a living, thinking man in the neck and hadn't thought about it since the second he saw the body fall. Even now, Keith couldn't bring himself to truly care about the life he'd taken.

Oh fuck, didn't that make him some kind of sociopath?

No; animals, he thought to himself dizzily, snapping back to reality where he'd lost another few seconds. Sociopaths killed animals and Keith could never hurt a dog even if it had bitten him first. Well still, this was really something that should bother him, wasn't it?

It was bothering Lance. Lance was more worried about having killed with his own hands than Keith could ever hope to understand, was reacting like a normal human being would. Lance would remember this for the rest of his life. Remember all four of the men he'd killed tonight, and maybe even the one Keith had taken out, too. They were trapped in an underground tunnel about to die, and Lance still had the energy to hope that somehow the man whose skull he bashed in had lived.

Somehow, it was that that made everything suddenly make sense. Maybe it was the blood loss and endorphins twisting his thoughts in strange ways, but Keith instantly understood. Understood everything about his whole life, in a way he never had before.

Every single part of him; every personality disorder that made it impossible to fit in with normal society. The social anxiety telling him to stay away from crowded spaces and untrusted people. The paranoia telling him that the universe was trying to kill him and he had to be on guard at all times. The restless need driving him to training, and the way fighting was the only thing that ever truly cleared his head and let him relax.

He wasn't broken, and he wasn't crazy.

Keith was built for war.

Every single part of Keith, from his body all the way down to his very brain chemistry was built for the sole purpose of survival .

Something about everything was suddenly ridiculous. It could have been the epiphany, or the despair of the fact that they were still going to die here, or even just the delirium of the last few seconds of consciousness. But either way Keith found himself laughing, loud and long and admittedly kind of hysterical. Kind of completely hysterical, actually.

Lance of course, looked at him worriedly, stumbling when Keith missed the next step. They fell gracelessly to the floor, separating enough for Lance to look him in the eye. "K-Keith? Hey, sweetie, you feeling okay?"

Oh, Lance. His beautiful, gentle Lance. Never meant for this war like Keith was, but still completely invaluable to it. Poor sweet Lance who tried so hard to take care of all of them, who was never supposed to leave the impersonal distance of his sniper's scope to feel blood splatter onto his face. Keith reached out to him, trying to wipe the purple stain of Galran blood off of Lance's cheek, only to leave a smear of his own red in its wake.

Keith barely noticed. Just held Lance's worried face against his palm, and tried to convince Lance is his most reassuring tone, "It's _okay,_ Lance."

Lance, if anything, looked more worried. "Keith…"

Keith shook his head, cutting Lance off with a hush and leaning in to bring their faces inches apart. "Sssshhhhhh. No, you don't understand, _it's okay_ , Lance. I'll protect you." And he would. Would make sure that from now on it was only Keith whose hands got dirty, that Lance would never have to watch another enemy die from that close again. Make sure Lance could sleep at night, so he could do what it was he did and take care of all of them, keep them together by being stronger than any of them. The important support Voltron relied on to keep them standing, useless and far too rigid without him. "It's my turn to take care of you now, okay?" Keith repeated, patting Lance's cheek lovingly and thinking the wet slap of blood it made really was a shame.

Lance winced at the sound, too, cringing enough for Keith to see even with his vision going dark all around the edges. "Keith…"

You know what else was really a shame?

That that was the last thing Keith had said before he passed out.


	8. For Worse

AN: EXPOSITION TIME! Did I ever mention I suck at pacing lol? In any case, it's right now. Now that thing I said you only need to know twice comes up again. " " " This bultshit."""

* * *

"Bae! Mr. The Bae! Come on, wake up time, cutie!"

What, Keith thought to himself groggily, the ever loving fuck was that ?

Keith was shaking. No, someone was shaking him, by the shoulder he hadn't been stabbed in. Because he'd been stabbed. Why was being stabbed the only thing he remembered?

"Uh, his name's actually Keith," Lance's voice said hesitantly, dragging Keith back to reality in one sudden jerk.

The fight. The underground Galra base. Lance's legs, red and seared with melted fabric.

Keith's eyes shot open and his body jerked forward, pain instantly meeting the too-fast movement where a hole ran through the length of his body. A flurry of flashy red feathers and a geruda was gently catching his falling body to help him sit upright with a wicked groan, every part of his body screaming in muted pain.

"He's awake!" Lance shouted the instant Keith sat up, shoving the geruda aside to scramble to Keith, sliding an arm under his back to help him sit up. "You're awake, you're alive! Are you alright, how do you feel?"

"Are YOU alright?!" Keith countered frantically instead of answering. "You BLEW UP! Your legs, how are your legs?"

Lance shook his head. "I'm fine, it's just some skin," he denied like having a layer of flesh seared off was not their highest priority right now - which, oh god, it really was pretty low on the list, wasn't it? "You lost so much blood, and there's still a big-ass hole in your shoulder!"

"I feel fine," Keith said, and then realized afterwards it wasn't even a lie. Okay he felt like shit, yeah, and he still felt like he'd been shot, but compared to the pain he remembered from last time he'd been awake this was... this was crackerjacks. "I feel - no, I'm. I'm good. I think I can stand up on my own."

"Okay I'm good, but I'm not THAT good. There's fruggin noooo way you can walk right now," a girly voice reprimanded. Keith finally grounded enough to become aware of the rest of the room, and more namely, the trio of geruda girls therein. The short-haired one who'd spoken was waving a small white case meaningfully. "I mean I'm totally awesome AND the only one smart enough to know we'd need to bring a med kit, but I like, had NO way of dealing with," she gestured to the entirety of Keith and Lance. "Alllll of whatever y'all have done to yourselves. I never even figured out what species you guys are, man. I thought for a sec maybe Altean, but those are all extinct now, soo... " A shrug.

Goddamned Elpis. Miles of underground sewers for what appears to be no reason whatsoever, and fucking medical treatment advanced enough that even an amatuer winging her way blindly through first-aid could treat a bullet wound and a three-inch deep gash well enough to save Keith's worthless life. Keith couldn't decide if he loved this planet or hated it.

He looked down to take stock of Lance's legs, but the geruda had managed to strip bandages out of the last tatters of Lance's coat that Keith wasn't already been wearing himself. Ridiculously enough, since Lance's pants had had to be peeled off his burned skin this left him in no clothes left but a beaten up Altean overshirt and his blue and white striped boxers, and Keith almost wanted to laugh. It was like no matter how badass Lance was, the universe just couldn't let him go too long without looking silly.

"You thought to bring a med kit," the tall geruda with the deepest voice said, meaningfully raising the point of an AK-looking laser rifle she was holding at half-arms. "And I thought to bring a gun. We all have our own ideas of what's important." Before Keith had time to worry about the gun she had turned back to the doorway she was standing in to look back into the hallways outside, and it became instantly obvious that she was meant to stand sentry.

The last girl leaned in next to Lance, and said in an almost conspiratorial tone, "I brought the map," and grinning like she'd shared a secret.

Keith's jaw fell open as he finally had time to wonder just what the fuck was going on here. Who… Why… Galra base... Girls? Where the fuck had these three even COME from? Not that he wasn't grateful that they had apparently saved his and Lance's lives, but… What?

"And can that map. Actually like. Get us the hell out of here?" Lance asked dubiously. He'd been awake longer than Keith had - hadn't he already asked what was going on? Why had no one explained anything to Keith?!

"It got us this far, didn't it?" The girl swished her hips cutely when she chirped this, and a wave of familiarity slammed into Keith.

"Wait a minute," Waitwaitwait wait, this wasn't just three random geruda girls that had appeared out of nowhere - this was. He KNEW these girls. He only remembered one name out of the three of them, but Keith was dead certain of their identities. "Are you - Lala from Fyrestone?!"

Lala's face blossomed into a flattered smile, beaming "You remembered my name! OmiGAWD, I'm so happy I could like, totally die, you're so sweet!"

Lance's jaw dropped down to meet Keith's on the floor, and the recognition dawning in his eyes was visible. "A- W- Did we wind up all the way to Fyrestone?! What are we doing here? What are YOU doing here!? How far underground are we?!"

Rather than any kind of actual helpful response, the short-haired one grinned and pointed at herself to ask, "You gotta remember my name too, right?"

Lance's brow furrowed, more out of concern that he hadn't gotten an answer than a look of trying to recall something as he dumbly said, "Like, Sasha and Leash, I think? Look, it just occurred to me to wonder what the fuck is going on here? We keep passing out, and I don't even know what DAY it is anymore, and now you guys are here and I'm kinda afraid I've just gone crazy at this point?"

Sasha bounced on her heels excitedly when Lance got her name right, but Lala was already swooping in with "Oh, don't worry, it's not a coincidence! We came to Concordia specifically, because we're the only ones who have seen your faces before!"

Sasha nodded next to her. "Yeah, no one else even knew what species you are, much less what to look for. And since we don't have access to any of that fancy technology that can just pull an image from our brains, that really left just the one option, lol." Did she just say 'lol' out loud? Who the fuck - who VERBALIZES that? Did it mean something else in Elpisian? Fuckin… No. Least of his problems.

From the doorway, Leash didn't bother to turn around to look at them to finish, "Not that we're qualified for an extraction mission like this," her voice carried a hint of irritation, "But apparently they didn't have anyone actually trained in combat to SPARE." All three girls stuck out their tongues at once, without looking at each other or indeed facing vaguely similar directions.

"And who the fuck are 'THEY,'" Keith demanded, the panic of too many unknowns starting to set in. Lance shot him a worried look. "You were sent? Who knew we were here to send you?"

" " "The R.A., of course(/naturally/obviously)!"""

It was Lance who snapped at them this time. "And who the quiznacking cockwaffle are the RA?!"

The girls all exchanged a sort of confused look. "You know, UAGRA! Isn't that what you came here looking for?"

" "THEN WHAT'S UAGRA?!"" He and Lance shouted in a familiar almost-unison.

Exasperated, all three girls shouted back, " " "The United Anti Galran Rebel Alliance!"""

Which was of course… What? The fuck? Was this some kind of… cosmic joke?! Because with a name like that it sounded like…

"Or," Leash said with a flourishing wave of her hand, "As we're commonly known, the Revolutionary Army. The RA. PLEASE tell me you guys really are the paladins of Voltron because today has just been the PITS, and I really don't need this kind of drama."

No way. No fucking way. The stupid fucking revolutionary army Allura had sent them here for, an entire MONTH on this goddamned planet, and literally the f _irst fucking people they spoke to_ were the ones they had been looking for?! All of this. All of this work, all of their injuries, ALL of this… Wasted… Pointless… Jesus fucking christ Keith was having a heart attack.

Lance was in a similar state of upheaval. "Are you telling me," he said lowly, "that we just… This entire… And all I really had to do was keeping talking to the very first person I freaking met?!"

Lala shrugged. "Honestly? Yeah. Buuuuut that's because this is Elpis? Like, it's harder to find a geruda that ISN'T involved with the RA than one who is, yanno?"

Keith and Lance exchanged uncomfortable, twitchy glances. "We don't know, actually. We don't know ANYTHING," Lance whined, sounding like a man on the verge of mental breakdown. "Like, how did you guys even know we're paladins to remember our faces? We met you for two minutes!"

Lala and Sasha both pointed, surprisingly, to Keith. " "Your outfit,"" they explained, Sasha picking up where her friend left off. "We've all seen it before in the archives. There's not a single geruda on the planet that hasn't heard of the Red Paladin Kara Thrace, dudes. And you were wearing the same spacesuit, right down to the color."

"Not to mention you kind of told us," Lala giggled. "You mentioned 'important universe saving business' twice and then didn't even use it as a line to try and pick us up!"

Lance of course had not heard the story from Coran to be taken aback by this information like Keith was. "The Red Paladin who now? Is that… Another geruda?"

"Kara Thrace," Leash said firmly, still not training her eyes away from the halls outside their hidden little… Keith didn't even know. Closet, maybe? "Is the indisputable historical proof that geruda are more than people think we are. People hear the story of Kara Thrace and they remember that no matter how fragile we may seem, geruda can fight. If one of us alone was that strong, than all of us together can make a force that can't be stopped." Then, in a lighter tone, she shrugged, "Or at least, that's the idea."

"It's really theoretical," Lala waved with a queasy smile. "Leash here can fight or sure, but when we were cleaning your wounds I almost passed out just from looking at you guys!"

"You still came with us though, eh?" Sasha grinned, elbowing her in the side.

Lance clutched at his hair like this was giving him as much of a headache as it was giving Keith. "Okay, okay, then how did you know we'd be here in this Galra base, then?"

"Oooh, this part's so cool!" Lala chirped excitedly. "Like, omigawd, okay. So the RA's this huuuuuge intergalactic organization, right? So since it's so big, it's really rare to find an entire planet with as many RA members as Elpis has! So natch the Royal Palace actually has a TON of super secret meetings going on between all these important bigshots, not because it's the safest place but just because it's the easiest place to get all these different people in one room, or whatever. ANYWAY, this just means that Concordia is crawling with RA members pretty much all the time, BUUUUT we kinda still have all these Galra same as anywhere else does, sooooo. Not everything works out perfectly all the time, yanno?"

Sasha sighed. "Your stories are too long, chica, we gotta get these bozos on the move soon. I don't know if you noticed, THIS is where all those Galra tend to hang out." After careful consideration, she abandoned the medical kit to offer Lance a hand up, both he and Keith still slumped against the wall together. "Ya ya ya whatever, the RA has a flag in the Galran prison database. We get alerted to who and where every time someone is registered, because that way we can bust out any of our crew if they get taken in."

Lala was helping Keith up, insisting he rest some of his weight on her tiny shoulder as they hobbled towards the door. "But the data we get is usually like, REALLY specific, and since this time we only got a flag saying two VIP prisoners were locked in a boiler room instead of a cell where their names would be registered, everyone was all like 'whaaaat?' And there's no way to contact our mole who set up that program because like, hello, deep cover or whatever."

"And since everyone had heard the rumor that the paladins of Voltron were in Concordia -" Leash picked up for her, before dropping the idea for Sasha to finish.

"- And because we happened to have already reported that we saw a couple peeps running around that looked like they were probably said Voltronic paladinos…"

" " "This seemed like the easiest way to handle things!""" They all sang like it was just common sense. Once Lala and Sasha wrangled Keith and Lance to the door supporting them like four foot ten feathery crutches, Leash stepped out of the doorway to finally glare back at them, "Except for the part where we had to come find your dumb butts when you weren't in the boiler room! Do you know how long we had to spend figuring out which fracking way you'd gone? If something hadn't blown up we might never have found you."

Lala smiled apologetically at Keith. "I'm um, not actually great with this map though, so I only know how to get us OUT of here if we backtrack all the way back up to the route I planned out in the first place."

"Left our stuff back there anyway," Keith mumbled in return, mind still reeling with the overload of information. All of Elpis... No, not Elpis - the geruda specifically, that's what they'd said. Every member of a society that Keith had previously observed to be built on flirting with foreigners... All of them secretly working to take down the Galran Empire. Nearly every one of these strange girls that flocked together more naturally than birds… Keith was still missing something.

The missing last names. The shortened lifespans. The secret Galran underground. The Merchant's Guild.

The Merchant's Guild, Keith thought with a frown, letting his brain stew on the idea as Sasha lead them first through the tunnels, Lala in the middle with Keith and Leash and their only gun bringing up the rear. If the geruda were all revolutionaries and the MGE was invented to protect the geruda… Holy shit. It wasn't a protection racket against other planets: the Merchant's Guild was bait. A red herring created to draw Galran attention away from the Queen's rebellion, something that grew into its own monster but didn't need to be contained, because the more outrageous its influence the more distracting it became, all the more perfect in its design… Some fucked up kind of brilliant, right there. Let the mafia take the city; the planet itself was still theirs.

No… It didn't add up yet. Keith was still missing something. Something "too delicate to be conquered by warfare," Veret had said. The reason the Galra were here, the reason they hadn't destroyed the planet outright like they had so many others… What weren't these girls telling them?

"Ummm," Lala's hesitant voice broke through the silence. "Next we have to be… Up there?" She pointed at a huge tunnel pouring a stream of muddy sand-and-waste sludge into a pool below. Which was not the bad part. That was the fact that it was about, oh, ten feet off the ground, he'd guess? And there were very clearly no ladders of any kind present? This was a fun day.

"We can't climb that," Lance explained tiredly. "Is that how you guys got down here?"

"Yeahhhh, we know what we're doin'." Sasha shifted Lance's weight from her shoulder where she'd only been helping him to her entire back. "Gimme all your weight and try to keep it low, 'cause this spine is not meant for your heavy keester, Handsome."

Dubiously, Lance leaned his weight onto her and did the best effort he was capable of bending his knees right now. Keith then watched his eyes widen in surprise as Sasha used those thick lizardy legs to leap directly into the air, letting out a strangled "HURK," of alarm as she propelled them into the open sewer tunnel.

Ah. Actually, that explained kind of a lot. Evolution required one to defend against predators, and it looks like the geruda had been blessed with cast-iron legs. All the better to fly these hollow bird bones with, my dear. "Hey, you two weigh the same?" Sasha called back as she and Lance stumbled into a wet landing.

Leash looked back at Lala, still at Keith's side. "Yeah, there's no way that's a good idea," she agreed, unlooping the strap of her gun from around her shoulder. "Trade me, darling" she nodded towards Keith, holding out her gun in offer.

Lala shuddered as Keith, too tired to feel humiliated, allowed Leash to bear his weight on her back as she jumped up into the sewers above them with surprising grace.

It was once they reached this higher floor that the trouble began. Quite generally Keith didn't know how they'd managed to avoid the Galra for this long, but their luck ran out the instant they started making headway back upwards. Considering they were currently a party of three civilians, two heavily injured moronic paladins, and one gun, the only option was another long, terrifying game of hide-and seek, ducking quickly through hallways with the harsh ringing echoes of Galran footsteps nearby their constant, ominous companion.

Eventually, after god knows how long they made it back to their old enemy the boiler room. But more importantly the room next to it, which after barely any effort to break into contained an entire storehouse of confiscated and spare weaponry.

Including, as surprising as it was that Veret had been telling the truth, their bayards. And including, even more bafflingly, his fucking knife. His knife, the knife he'd smuggled through countless foster homes by sewing it into the back of a stuffed elephant until he was big enough for no one to notice he was carrying it on him at all times. Fucking A, was this a good day or a bad one? Keith was afraid he'd lost this baby for good this time.

Veret telling the truth… The image of a red fruit cracking flashed in Keith's mind.

If there was one place the Galra weren't gonna look for them, it was back where they'd escaped from in the first place, right? Now. They had two spare seconds in which they didn't need to be silent, and Keith couldn't wait any more. They were doing this now.

When Lala tried take his arm again, he rejected it with determination. "What," he started firmly, eyeing each of the girls in turn, "exactly, are the Galra doing on Elpis? What do they need from this place? Why haven't they already enslaved this planet like all the rest, and why is every single member of an entire species dedicated against them, to the point where casual passersby on the street can report our actions to a secret revolution?! What is going ON in this place?!"

Each of the girls exchanged an uncomfortable glance with the others. "Well, you know," Sasha winced cagily. "It's… Kind of this whole complicated thing, you know?"

"I think we have a minute," Lance agreed flatly. "Summarize it."

Lala made a pathetic, whiny sort of noise of distress, eyes on the ground towards the doorway Leash was, predictably, standing in. Leash huffed a short sigh out of her nose, and tiredly said, "We already told you, honestly. The Galra are here for the same reason everyone has always come to Elpis for, since the beginning of society."

Keith frowned, mind reeling as he tried to put together that vague hint with the rest of the information he had. The reason aliens had started coming to Elpis was… because geruda could breed with anyone? Because the geruda could give children to nearly any species in the universe.

"Something that can't be taken by force." Something the geruda would fight and die rather than give up freely. Something as valuable as life itself.

Keith's eyes widened in horror, his heart seizing in his chest. No… no way. Even for the Galra that was just… Just too…

"What are you talking about?" Lance demanded, anger and frustration straining his voice. "Why won't anyone ever just TELL me anything?!"

Oh, shit. Keith swallowed hard, instantly understanding why the geruda had been so hesitant to give a straight answer. Finding himself equally unable to voice the horrific truth, Keith offered in a voice shakier than he had hoped it would come out, "Lance. What's the one thing an empire needs to stay an empire, more than any other? More important than money, or weapons, or land, or anything? The one thing a war needs so badly that once this resource run low, the war is instantly over, impossible to continue?"

Lance scowled at him, ready to snap that he wanted a real answer until he saw the tortured look on Keith's face. "The one thing…" He let out an aggravated scoff, desperately shrugging, "I don't know, people?"

Keith took in a deep breath, and, very deliberately, nodded. "Yeah, Lance. People. Every Galran base or ship we've ever seen has had at least a couple of living Galran soldiers commanding the drones, right? Even if they each live thousands of years, you saw the span of their territory on Allura's map. You've seen the number of Galrans here just in this sewer! There must be... countless numbers of them. And yet as far as we know, they have nothing like a civilian home base. Their planet was destroyed, we've known that practically this whole time." It was partly the blood loss, partly the horror, but mostly, Keith was sure, the barely suppressed flow of rage that was making his hands shake like this. "So where are they all coming from, Lance?"

He could see the cogs reeling in Lance's brain, and it did not take long for the pieces to snap into place. He watched Lance's eyes widen in the same disgusted horror that had overcome Keith only moments before, and his head snapped to look at the girls as he gasped out, "Oh god, you can't mean-"

"To be fair!" Lala held up her hands quickly, voice forced into cheerfulness. "It's significantly less creepy than it sounds when you realize we only have to give them the eggs we lay. This whole thing would be waaaaaay different if any of us had to be like, present for fertilization."

Sasha rolled her eyes and Leash buried her face in one hand. "You are just. The most tactful," Leash said with flat sarcasm. "My delicate rose."

"In for a henny, in for a dround," Sasha huffed to herself. "Geruda start to lay eggs when we bond with someone, there's this chemical in our brains that starts the whole mating cycle when we're like, in love and junk. So, if you identify this chemical, and then say, pump it into a city's air supply with some well-placed vents, then every girl in the city will be in full heat year-round, laying eggs every few weeks like crazy." The air conditioning - the vents the'd just been crawling through - jesus god, this was fucked up.

"Not very good for a girl's body, it turns out." Leash said dryly. The shortened lifespans and lack of older women, of course… "Can we get moving again now that you know our dirty little secret? I am so far beyond not willing to die down here."

"Why," Lance's voice was choked with distress and residual horror. "Why are you just… giving them your children! How can… How long has..."

Leash sighed again, her eyes pinching shut as the other two exchanged another set of looks. "Well that's what the RA is for, isn't it? It's not that hard to understand. Lots of people were dying in the space war, so some old queen made a deal with the Galra, and made UAGRA and the MGE at the same time. We head to a Nursery when we're about to lay an egg, they do their thing, if it's a geruda daughter they send her up to the Kindergarden to join the system and be raised by the Governesses and if it's a Galran son they… Take it to do whatever with. Probably just raise them down here, but no one's found any proof of where yet."

"They keep track of us," Sasha explained with a shrug. "So if you miss a date at the Nursery they notice. They don't bother trying to find the egg you kept for yourself, just make sure you don't miss the next date by ah, 'quarantining' a sister."

"Jailed in a hospital bed," Leash's voice with thick with bitterness, sending an ominous chill down Keith's spine.

Sasha and Lala exchanged uneasy looks. "Me and Lala were both born out in Fyrestone, so we've never…" Which left of course, the open implication that this meant Leash had . Unsettling indeed.

"Yeah, I think I… get the picture," Lance said thickly, eyes downcast. "She's right, we need to focus on getting out of here."

Immediately, the clatter of boot steps alerted them to the fact that maybe hanging around here hadn't been such a great idea after all, and they were quick to get on the move again with an inappropriately cheerful reassurance from Lala that she'd get them out of there in no time.

They were a large, slow-moving party, but Keith figured they were still better off than just he and Lance had been by themselves. Even knowing if and when they got into a fight they'd have to find a way to protect at least two civilian non-combatants, Sasha's first aid been invaluable. Or well, Keith didn't feel like he was about to die anymore, which was kind of a big deal. He had been… Really quite certain he'd been dead for a minute there.

Keith seemed to be fairly alone in his newfound optimism. But that was understandable considering after what was definitely another half hour or more of wandering Lala and Sasha were getting worn down, bearing less and less of Keith and Lance's weight until the four of them had sort smashed together in a horizontal line, all dragging each other through the hallway like an exhausted prisoner chain.

Leash was pausing, turning one ear to the hallway behind them to ominously confirm, "Someone's coming."

Keith nodded to her gun. "Can you handle out backs?"

She looked grim. "Probably not. I've fought my way out of a Nursery, but that wasn't against real soldiers and it with one of these," she raised the tip of her gun meaningfully.

"I can shoot," Lance said quickly.

"The fuck you will," Keith hissed back. Jesus fucking quiznak, there was no way he was letting this happen all over again. Not today. Not when Lance was only barely alright to begin with; he only had one goddamned limb left as it was. "We're running."

The decision was accepted immediately. The repercussions were also immediate, because even the soft padding of gerudan claws turned loud when a group of them were all scrambling together. Their footsteps echoed through the tunnels, loud and heart-poundingly ominous under the sickly white fluorescent lights of the sewers.

But not as loud as the deep voice shouting behind them: "This way! I can hear them! "

"Oh, cluck, oh cluck, oh jinkies, oh cluck," Lala was quietly whispering to herself on every stumble, jammed between Keith and Lance with an ECHO screen bouncing unsteadily in front her face. "There's - we're close, there's still one way out from here, and it's like the only way we CAN go, but-"

Lance didn't let her finish. "'Out' is good enough for us, just tell us if we're going the wrong way!"

She craned her head as best as she could while running as fast as she could and sandwiched between two men nearly a foot taller than her. "It's just where it leads…" She said nervously.

The footsteps were close enough that Keith heard the warm-up fire of a laser rifle and it's flash in the corner of his peripheral vision, and Sasha squawked in alarm. "Anywhere it leads is really good right now, I'm thinking!"

Their four-person wall broke apart in their efforts to hurry, turning from a moving game of Red Rover to five tired people stampeding through a damp tunnel like they were being chased by hellhounds. Which, actually would have been better, because at least hellhounds wouldn't have been shooting lasers at their freaking backs.

Lance stumbled, nearly falling until Leash grabbed his arm as she passed to drag him along with her.

"I see them! There's five, not just the two we knew about!"

Fuckfuckfuckfuck FUCK. Keith didn't spare a glance over his shoulder, just heard Lance direct a quick, "Here, let me -" before a few shots fired from a significantly closer proximity.

"LEFT!" Lala cawed, just in time for the party to swerve into an almost-unnoticed door that opened directly into a blissfully upward-climbing staircase.

There were - a lot of stairs. Too many stairs, too too many stairs, and Keith had a bullet hole in him, and whatever Sasha did with that first aid kit he's petty sure he just managed to undo because his shoulder was warm with blood again. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, nearly slamming into another closed door, everyone was weak with exhaustion and Keith was distressingly lightheaded.

There - there was no way to open the door. He could see it, and it was a solid black metal wall with no handle of any kind and when he looked over his shoulder he saw the first Galran soldier catch up enough to fling the door open after them and start up the stairs himself -

"Come on, we didn't take that LONG, answeransweransweransweranswer," Lala impatiently bounced, pounding her tiny fist against the door.

Jesus christ they were like fish in a barrel here, easily picked off one by one and the Galra was close enough for Keith to be able to see the yellow of his eyes.

The door clicked. Sasha and Keith threw their bodies against it, barreled the door open with a wide swing that had all five of them spilling out into a pained pile onto immaculate pink brick tiling.

The harsh red sun burned at Keith's eyes, and everything was white with dizzing light blindness for a few seconds before he could coordinate. Leash was already slamming the door shut behind them as he sat up, grabbing his head and blinking at their sudden and unprecedented arrival into… Lush blue-green bushes, perfectly sheared into uniform symmetry, a brick pathway that bridged over a lake of equally perfect shape, and even the intricately carved black metal door seemed to sprout out of nowhere from between two trees. A garden? A very NICE garden, even. And judging by the uniform on the confused geruda guard that had just opened that door for them…

"Uh, Ma'am!" The guard called back to somewhere Keith couldn't particularly see through the small crowd of gerdua peeling themselves off the ground. "There are some people here, and um. Did you know about this? Should I be throwing them back in the sewers?"

"No, I've been expecting them," a husky voice answered, and Keith couldn't even get off of his ass and back onto his feet before she was stepping into view. A familiar face, one he and Lance had both seen countless times since they'd come to Concordia. Although more weathered in person, this was the face from newsclips and public service billboards, currently looking down on them like someone had alerted her to the pile of dogs at her feet: Shirun Shera, Queen of the kingdom of Sheba. "Although that was hours ago now, you're lucky anyone was around to open that door for you at all."

"Yeah speaking of, your high majesticness ma'am," Sasha pointed back to the door. "There's totally some Galra dudes who are about to come trying to bust this down after us, so sorry!"

The Queen, towering over her two guards at a regal 5'6, rolled her eyes like this was just another tick in a very long line of them. "I can never find the time to get exercise anyway," she muttered, gathering up her loose skirts in one hand as she marched towards the closed door, unceremoniously grabbing the axe from the hands of her beleaguered guard as she threw it open and stormed inside.

Keith looked to Lance, who was slowly rising to his feet with the support of the doorframe. "Should we just… be letting her go down by herself like that?"

"Yeah," The guard slumped, an odd mixture of frazzled and resigned. "I'd have been surprised if she DID let me do anything."

An almost disturbingly short amount of time later there was a polite knock from the other side, and Lance opened it with only minor hesitation. The Queen wiped the bottom of her bare foot against the ground before she stepped back outside, a little bit of purple blood staining her tiles anyway when she handed the axe back to her guard. "Get down there and do some cleanup, I don't want any more rats finding their way into my garden."

Before the door had even swung shut behind her, Shirun Shera was turning her sharp eyes on Lance and Keith. "Now," she said firmly. "Tell me you are who I think you are, and for the love of all that is holy please tell me one of you is in charge."

Lance and Keith exchanged helpless glances, and then, because it seemed like the thing to do, both stiffly bowed. "We are the Paladins of Voltron, your highness," Lance offered magnanimously. "Voltron's right arm and leg, and um." He smiled nervously. "As for that leader thing, I don't suppose you could lend us a phone or something?"

Her eye twitched minutely. "I don't know what you're referring to. Would you at least tell me where I can find the person who IS in charge? I understand there's going to be a Galran battlecruiser launching in a few minutes and I'm really rather hoping it has nothing to do with you."

Both of them winced unconsciously at her biting tone. Well this was not the warm heroic welcome the name Voltron usually got, that was for sure. But more importantly, that battlecruiser was not a good sign, and since the Galra presumably had all of the information Veret had, that included the location of their shop, which is where at least two people would BE right now because it was daylight and -

His eyes shot back to Lance, who was looking like he was coming to similar conclusions himself. "Maliwan - our stall, our friends are set up in the Maliwan district right now, they could be headed straight FOR -"

Keith whipped to the Queen, restraining his rising panic to force himself into politeness as he stuttered, "We need - A ride, if we could be so... So bold as to ask a favor, we really need to get over there, or back out to the castle, Allura or Shiro will be back there anyway and what do you mean by a few minutes, exactly?"

Queen Shirun let out the sigh of the truly put-out. She turned to her remaining guard. "Go have someone prepare my personal ship. Apparently, I am going out into town."

Lala tentatively raised her hand. "We can come, too right? It's a lot harder for a girl to get out of Concordia than it is to get in."

The fly over had done nothing to soothe the renewed rise of adrenaline from their chase into the Royal Gardens, and before the shop was even in sight the tell-tale purple speck of an impending Galran ship was visible on the horizon.

Lance and Keith were stumbling their way out of the ship without even letting it land, just hovering in the streets like a jet plane in the middle of a sidewalk as they ran to an incredibly baffled and concerned Hunk and Shiro.

Questions of where they had been all night or why they seemed to have stolen a small airplane and what the hell had happened to Lance's… Both of their everything were all shoved aside in favor of shoving them INside, corralling the two into the waiting ship with a nervous eye on the increasingly looming Galrans hunting after them.

"Pidge, Pidge is in town somewhere still!" Hunk protested, looking back at the stop stall they were currently trying to abandon as Lance shoved at his back.

"She has to be nearby," Shiro confirmed. "And unlike you two… shining examples of common sense, SHE actually has her communicator on her. We just need to pick her up."

Pidge was still in Maliwan with them, but still far enough off that she had to arrange a meeting place to swing by and get her. It only left more time for the Galran ship to catch up to them of course, so close that by the time Pidge was inside and they were taking off again Keith was worriedly scanning the horizon for traces of purple.

Had he not been, he might not have seen it. In the distance towards the local shipyard, a familiar hull rising unsteadily into the sky.

"Is that… Is that the Inara?" He asked hesitantly, watching what appeared to be their rented Firefly hobble drunkenly into into flight.

Pidge didn't even look out the window to check. "Uhhh, I'm guessing yes. When Shiro said we didn't have time to take any of the leftover furniture I sort of gave the guys her keys before I ran off."

"'The guys' being..?" Lance asked dubiously.

This gave Pidge pause. "You knoooowww. Just some dudes I was hanging out with," she said with a casualness no one found comforting. "They owe me a favor so," she squinted out the window over Keith's lap. "So, I mentioned it would help me if they could stall those Galra."

They were still zipping through streets now, avoiding the traffic in the sky by staying low to the planet's surface, uncaring of the effects of their passing. Tables knocked over, stall wares were blown off shelves, a Galra ship loomed overhead being quickly gained on by a cargo ship full of knick-knacks, and the last thing Keith saw before their ship punctured through Concordia's barrier like a knife through jello was a confused Galra in pink sunglasses and a hawaiian shirt ducking his face behind a newspaper to pretend he didn't exist.

Pidge's gang slowed down their pursers enough for it to be safe to drop the girls off in Fyrestone before rushing back to the castle. There was hardly time for a dramatic farewell considering they needed to get out of there ASAP lest the Galra chase them down to find this friggin' place, even with the Queen's cloaking tech covering their tracks and asses. Still, considering who it was they were dropping off, they could hardly get away with no goodbye at all.

"Now don't forget about us!"

"It was honor to get lost and almost die with you boys~"

"And you should super duper DEFINITELY remember to visit us sometime! Or at least just call, I gave that cute honey with the big goggles my ECHO number so you have no excuse not to-"

Keith was hanging halfway out the door of a jetship with a running engine, and felt like there was not quite enough time for this. "Yep," he cut her off, "oh for sure Lala, but we gotta take off now so -"

"Bye!" Lance waved cheerfully from over his shoulder, before Hunk was yanking him back inside with a less than gentle: "No standing, damn it!"

The ship was already in gear and starting to slide forward again. And of course, just as Keith was about to duck back inside and shut the door behind him, his eyes caught sight of the last thing he expected to see and he froze on the spot. "Oh god," he said as he watched the ink-stained face of a familiar alien. "Oh god, he's still blue, Pidge!"

Pidge twisted to look out the back window as he shrunk from sight. "Oh crap on a Christmas tree," she cursed, head whipping back to Keith. "You're right, it's that guy we robbed!"

Shiro's voice was flat as a school principal's. "The guy you what now?"

"STOP!" Keith yelled up at the frazzled royal guard piloting the jet. "Swing around, we gotta circle back!"

"WHAT?" Queen Shera barked back. "Are you shitting me right now?!"

"It'll only take a second!" He insisted. "We owe money to that onion!"

A short aggravated growl and she was waving the pilot to turn around. A fast curve swooped them back in a circle, still gaining speed again as they passed by the startled and very confused alien, who had just been hit in the chest with a sack full of credits, only looking up just in time to see a little girl belt out "THANK YOU," as she disappeared into a barely-visible podship.

It took only minutes to fly out of Fyrestone, but it was enough time for the Galran ship to catch up. Or heck, maybe it wasn't even that first battlecruiser from town, because there were two more spotting the horizon and looking a whole lot like they knew exactly where everyone was headed. There was no avoiding it: they'd have to fight them.

He was tired. He was tired, and everything hurt, and there were probably still more Galra coming after them, and Keith couldn't even BEGIN to deal with everything that had happened today.

In front of him in the copilot's seat, the Queen of the Geruda was sitting tall and indomitable, mouth pinched into the same grim line she's been wearing since he first laid eyes on her. Quite against his will, he was struck with the sick curious nagging wondering if she, too, were subject to these mandatory "Nursery visits."

Leash had said she'd fought her way out of one. What did that even mean? Holding-a-scalpel-to-a-hostage-throat kind of fought or kicked-in-the-heads-of-ten-men fought? He wondered what had happened, and how she'd even gotten to Fyrestone at all. And, even though he really didn't want to think about it, he wondered about the missed visit that had landed her trapped in the Nursery to begin with. Had she tried to keep her egg for herself, to have and raise her own child? Had she intentionally skipped out of spite, just to deny them? Had it just been a fluke of her body, punished for an absence she couldn't control? And if that was the case, what about the geruda who for some reason or another, simply couldn't bear children? What happened to anyone who missed more than one appointment?

He didn't want to ask, and so he would never know.

This place… These women. And really, that's all they were, wasn't it? They were just… Women. The same as humans or Alteans or anywhere else over the universe, the geruda were, at their very core, nothing more or less than normal women. Taken on whole as a group they could easily seem vapid and shallow, but… Keith was in a ship with four geruda whom he'd all known for less than half a day, and he could already describe a bit of each of their personalities if asked. Once you got them down to individuals, they were as different as anyone.

The flirting, he realized instantly, was deliberate. It was how their society had been built, right? People had come to Elpis because they wanted geruda to bear their children. And the fact that they couldn't even do this anymore hadn't been noticed by anyone… which means they hadn't stopped. Geruda all over Concordia must have continued to steal their own eggs away from the Galra, spending a month in confinement as the price for raising their own child. And even the ones who surely had no intentions of falling in love and having children, like Leash and Sasha, continued to flirt and tease and charm and go on dates because… because that's what they did. They made the conscious decision to act that way.

Every day, they all made the deliberate decision not to let the Galra change who they were. The Galra could take everything - their names, their lifespans, even their children, but the geruda still could not and would not be swayed, would not let anything suppress who they fundamentally were. Wouldn't even let them take away their right to motherhood. Rejecting despair and fighting back each in their own small way, the geruda refused to be anything other than… Well. Geruda.

Yeah… Definitely just like any other woman across the universe, huh? Any planet anywhere would have done the same - an underground revolution boiling under the surface of a peaceful facade. A smile wearing poison lipstick.

What must that first queen have gone through, to come to such a place? How much could she have lost to decide the only choice was to pay the cost of her people knowing family, how much suffering must she have endured to place the future of their entire species on the hope that every generation after hers would be strong enough to keep on fighting?

Keith was well used to the tight hot tension of anger in his chest at the thought of the Galra, but this was... was something new, here. He wanted to fire up Red and tear every one of them apart for this. This madness. As if just taking land wasn't enough. As if just murder and genocide weren't enough! 'Inhumane' didn't even begin to cover it. When he spotted the fires of more Galran ships coming up behind them, all panic was gone in favor of anticipation, every hair on his body eager to get back to the castle and into Red again. Every one of them… He'd clear every last one of them off this planet, exterminate them like the cockroaches they were.

Except that that's not what happened.

What happened instead, was Keith being dragged kicking and screaming to the med bay while Shiro promised just the three of them alone were enough to take care of their pursuers. Slighted but not deterred, even once he let them go without him he refused the healing pod, determined to at least hear Allura and Queen Shirun's meeting even if he couldn't be a part of it directly. But he got to them too late for even that - the geruda queen was already departing with just an exchange of contact information.

And then Coran was carefully herding him back into a nearby healing pod, but no, he couldn't, because Allura was - she was taking off. She was raising the castle barriers and preparing for flight like they were leaving, like they had already gotten everything they came for and didn't have any more reason to stay, like they _weren't even going to do anything_!

He screamed at her, shouted that they couldn't just leave, tried to explain what the Galra were doing here and why they couldn't just _go_ , but…

The healing pod had already sealed shut around him. No one heard a word he said.

AN: ...That… doesn't count as another cliffhanger, right? Ahaha… Ahahaha…

WELL THE NEXT TWO CHAPTERS BOTH HAVE FLUFF AND PORN I PROMISE 100% NO GETTING AROUND IT OR DELAYING THEM BACK TO SOME FUN TIMES IS2FG


	9. For Better

When Keith woke up in his healing pod, his first thought was that he should have stayed in the med bay where Lance was. His second was that it didn't matter because he needed to talk to Allura first anyway.

And then the door actually opened.

Keith fell forward with a surprised lurch, sleeping legs collapsing out from under him before he even opened his eyes.

It was, both surprisingly and not surprisingly at all, Lance's welcome arms that caught him before he hit the ground. Well, good, Lance was okay, then. That question out of the way, Keith could move onto more urgent matters. "Where are we," he gasped before he was even on his feet again, "How long was I asleep?"

Lance's arm was steady around his shoulders. "It's been a few days," he said, sounding sorry. "We're… Way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere. Allura's pretty mad the whole planet seemed to know we were there, and apparently we're waiting for Queen Shirun or someone else from the RA to contact us?" Keith opened his mouth to ask a question, most likely something along the lines of 'Well where the hell is she anyway we need to TELL her,' but Lance was already speaking again. "I've only been awake for a couple of hours myself, but I… I told Shiro everything." He swallowed thickly, looking away when Keith's fingers curled into his biceps painfully. "Before I even went under actually. When you ran off to the bridge and he was trying to get me into a healing pod, I think I might have ended up screaming a little?" A self deprecating smile. "I don't remember really well."

Keith thought he might be shaking again, just from thinking about it. "Did he… Did understand you?"

Looking grim, Lance nodded. "From the look in his eyes, I'd say he did. Just told me we couldn't deal with anything until the two of us were fixed."

"Well, we're fixed now!" Keith said quickly. "Let's go find Allura and -"

"Keith," Lance cut him off firmly; looking tired, resigned, and directly into Keith's eyes. "Shiro was in the med bay when I woke up. He said…" he sighed. "He said we're waiting. No one is doing, or even planning anything until UAGRA calls us back."

Keith's nails dug into Lance's arms hard enough to bite through the fabric of his shirt into his skin as he demanded in a painfully hoarse voice, "You mean we're not going back?!"

Lance's frown cut deep into his face, and Keith could see his eyes screaming with the same rage as Keith's even through the almost professional calm of his voice. "There are, as of right now, no plans to return to Elpis."

Fuck... Fuck! That was ridiculous! What kind of… half-assed defenders of the universe were they?! "We're just… not going to do anything?!"

This time Lance just looked helpless, shrugging listlessly. "I don't know, I'm still hoping we're just waiting on the Queen to set up an attack plan, but I'm pretty sure the only reason anyone's told me anything at all is… Well, so they wouldn't have to be the ones to tell you, quite generally."

Sons of bitches. Well. Okay no matter how you looked at it they were right about leaving Lance and him alone with each other for when he woke up, but they didn't need to let Lance be the one to drop all that on Keith by himself. He finally released his grip on Lance, noticing for the first time he was still wearing the white healing suit Keith himself had also at some point been crammed into, and deciding that was probably a more important issue at this exact moment anyway. "And… How long have you been awake, anyway?"

Finally, Lance brightened up. "Two whole hours, which means you were more injured than me so I win!"

To his surprise, Keith felt a chuckle burst out of him. "Well, I did have an entire hole torn straight through the inside of my body, so. I can see why that might take more to fix than just a bit of external damage," he smirked, waiting for the rise from Lance.

His boyfriend snatched the bait immediately, placing a girlishly offended hand against his breast to scoff out "UM, excuse me? How about the entire layer of flesh seared off of my body, that's not a big deal?"

Keith grinned, stepping back into Lance's body space to bump their foreheads together and show he was only teasing. "I really don't see how it could be. I mean, you're standing aren't you?"

Lance made to reel back dramatically to bemoan the lack of love, but Keith was already pulling him back in with a light laugh. "But no really," Keith said, dropping his voice back into seriousness. "How are they? Any weakness? Have you even looked at them yet?"

Lance's face quickly fell back into a grimace. "They feel kind of… overly-warm still, so I've been too afraid to peek." He shook it off in an instant. "What about you, your shoulder okay? Full range of movement, stiffness, anything like that?"

Not a bad question, actually. Keith wound his right arm experimentally to get a feel for his shoulder, then the left side where he'd actually been shot through. "I don't think anything did permanent damage," Keith assessed after a moment. But, since it had taken them so long to get into healing pods…

Keith reached blindly behind himself, groping for the seam of his jumpsuit and yanking it down a few inches. Lance raised an eyebrow, to which Keith could only bashfully offer his back and ask "Undo my zipper?"

Lance blushed because he was adorable, sputtering "We're not even in the medbay, Keith, this is still the bridge! Why are you undressing?!"

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Keith turned around to give his back to Lance, even going as far as to lift his hair out of the way in case it was impeding the zipper. Or, he was pretty sure it was a zipper? Altean clothes were weird. "'Cause I wanna see, obviously. Shiro's got a ton of scars, it's not like they just don't exist in space because of the fancy technology." Shouldn't Lance of all people be the first person to know that?

"Ah, yeah," Lance muttered hesitantly behind him. He took hold of the fastener and slid it slowly down, the skintight suit falling with it to pool around Keith's exposed shoulders. "Nng," Lance made an uncomfortable noise behind him, and Keith shivered lightly at the feeling of a gentle fingertip tracing a tiny circle onto the skin of his shoulder blade. "You got me, it definitely left a mark." Another gentle touch to the other side, running is fingertip in a short line close to Keith's armpit. "Two," he corrected morosely. "You've got two scars." A head thumped onto Keith's shoulder, and Lance sadly whined "Ahhh, your lovely back…"

Well, that kind of sucked. At least he'd gotten Veret in the return, bastard probably had to dig the hairband teeth out of his torso with tweezers. Keith reached around to pat at Lance's head. "I've already got scars just from daily life, these aren't the first or last." Another whine from over his shoulder, and Keith had to ask in a light tease, "What, am I that ugly?"

"Never!" Lance tackled him into a hug, which since he was only a foot and a half away to begin with ended up bowling both of them to the ground. "Your body will always be perfect and sexy, no matter how badly you mangle yourself!" Keith pushed himself off the ground to sit up, Lance following with his long arms still wrapped around Keith's shoulders. In a much quieter tone, Lance admitted into Keith's ear, "I just want to be able to look at your naked back without remembering how I watched you get shot."

Aahhhhhh. Yeah he was there to see that, wasn't he? Whoooops. Lance settled so they were sitting together properly, Keith's back to his chest and knees knocking together on the floor. Speaking of which...

Keith put a hand on Lance's ankle, right where his own healing suit ended to reveal bare feet. "Your turn, Handsome," he said firmly, patting Lance's ankle. "Show me the damage."

Lance froze behind him, and Keith realized if he hadn't changed back into real clothes Lance wouldn't have thought to check himself yet. "Uhhhhh," he fumbled, arms tense around Keith. "I'm sure it's fine!"

Keith turned his head to give Lance a flat look. "You wanna do this now, or wait all day until worrying about it kills you?"

A pause. "You suck," Lance said bitterly. "Stop being good for me."

Figuring that was its own answer, Keith grabbed Lance's hem and peeled white fabric up a few tentative inches.

"See, so far so good!" Lance crowed. "No scars on my ankles, everything must be fine!"

Keith rolled his eyes. "You were also wearing boots," he reminded, making to pull more fabric up Lance's calf.

"I was, wasn't I!" Lance interjected in a squeal. "When do you think they took those off us, huh? And the handcuffs, neither one of us had gotten our handcuffs all the way off, but here we are - "

"Stop trying to stall," Keith didn't wait for any more of a response, rolling his pant leg up all the way to the knee and immediately wincing at what he saw.

Lance wasn't looking, head resting on Keith's shoulder. He must have felt Keith tense up underneath him, because instead of more tactical nonsense Lance only managed a meek, "How's it look?"

"Uhhhhh," Keith hesitated, trying to decide what Lance's version of 'bad' might be. The skin didn't looked raised or abraded at all, just…. Red. Rorschach blotches of angry redness painting the outside of Lance's gorgeous bronze calf, and Keith continued rolling surprisingly elastic fabric up past his knee to see the scars wander from halfway up his calf to halfway down his thigh. "Not that bad, honestly. Some… slight discoloration, is all."

Lance didn't raise his head. "This is the side the explosion wasn't on."

Keith winced, face twisting into a grimace. "Oh. It's probably pretty bad, then."

Lance made a whiny sort of noise, finally unwrapping himself from Keith enough to actually assess the damage to his own body. "My gorgeous skin…" He lamented. "All that moisturizer, for THIS! Ah, man, it's way too early to be getting my first space battle scars, I'm not supposed to come out with these until like ten years from now when we've been battling evil for ages and are all gritty and disillusioned from war!"

Keith had to pause at that. First scars? Uh… there was… No way he could not know, right? "Um, Lance?" Keith frowned, wondering if Lance had somehow managed to forget just because they were on his back. "What about from that first explosion? You know, that time you saved Coran and went into a coma?"

He could hear the furrowed brow in Lance's voice even without turning around. "What about then?"

Ooooohhhhhh shiiiiiiiit, he DIDN'T know. How could he not know?! Keith hadn't ever said anything about them because he'd figured Lance was probably self-conscious about it, had everyone else on the entire ship also just assumed he already knew about them and never mentioned it? Oh, shit. They sucked. They all sucked, is what this was. "Well," Keith could turn this around, couldn't he? Deliver bad news as though it were good news or something, right? He kept his voice light. "Um. About that. On the plus side, it's mainly a few knicks from shrapnel! Your paladin armor protected your back from most of the blast, so it's actually nowhere near as bad as- "

Lance was already scrambling into a stand, arms flailing behind his back to find his zipper tag and struggling out of the top half of his suit. Then proceeded to do an even more absurd looking dance where he started to twist around trying to look at his own back, contorting his torso in truly cirque du soleil levels of ridiculousness before quacking, "AH! There's really something there! Oh god, why did no one tell me?! And its all red back here, too, jesus!"

"We all thought you knew!" Keith apologized helplessly. "It's your own body, you seemed like the first person who would already know!"

Lance sunk to the ground miserably, hiding his face in his hands. "You don't understand, Keith." His voice was muffled by his palms, but still positively dripped with dramatic woe. "You're not the one who has to explain all these scars to my mom."

...Well that was not a thing Keith had taken into account, no. "I can help?" He shrugged helplessly, wondering what it was about Lance's mother that made this seem such a daunting dilemma.

Lance groaned again. Unburied his face to look down at his right leg. Sighed miserably. "It's not fair, your scars still manage to be hot and I just look like a walking burn ward."

Was this a good time to mention all the times when they'd been making out and Keith's hands had trailed up the back of Lance's shirt, only to shiver in excitement when his fingers brushed against the thin raised lines of Lance's shrapnel scars to be instantly reminded of how badass it was that Lance had shoved someone he'd only just met out of an explosion like some kind of Actual Action Hero? ...Maybe, but Keith was bad at reading signs, and so would go with the safe bet of 'Not now.' He opted for the edited version: "I dunno, I always thought your scars were pretty hot."

Lance sighed again, shorter and with less drama. "I guess that's something. I… It's not how it looks that's the problem. Well it is, but…"

Keith shuffled over towards him on the floor. "But… you're having problems communicating the thought?"

Lance looked confused by the way Keith had said that for a moment, before he remembered his own words with a huff of self-deprecating laughter, ruffling a hand through his hair. "Right. Shit. I'm supposed to actually talk about my feelings now, aren't I?"

"If I have to you have to," Keith urged him with a careful smile. "If it's not the way it looks that bothers you, why are you so upset?"

Shifting his weight until he had his arms wrapped around his knees and looking more towards his legs than at Keith, Lance thought about it. "It's permanent. Even if we kill Zarkon and go back to Earth, even if we find some way to go back and live normal lives…" He squeezed his eyes shut. "There's a war veteran my dad knows. Came home more than thirty years ago and he still has nightmares from it."

Oh. That… Was something that warranted worrying about, Keith supposed. "Even mine have already started," he offered with a frown. "I've woken up sweating and terrified more times than I can count."

A huff of sardonic laughter from Lance. "And now… I can't even pretend I'll be okay anymore. There's no way I'm ever gonna get over…" The crack of a man's skull under his hands. "...the things that have happened since we got here." He raised his bare, burn-red leg into the air. "And now my family will all be able to see what happened up here, even if I try to tell them it's all okay and I wasn't in that much real danger. Even if I go back to Earth… Nothing will ever really be normal again, will it?"

A heavy swell of… pity or sympathy or sorrow or something rose up in Keith's chest. Yeah, telling your mom about the time you exploded and burned your legs half off would be a pretty heavy conversation, even for someone as good at twisting stories as Lance was. Keith couldn't really empathize with no home or family that would be worried about him. "I… don't think I ever really planned on going back to Earth in the first place," he admitted. "I mean, I didn't really have anywhere to go back to anyway, and at least here I've got Allura and Coran." A pause. This conversation sucked. Weren't they supposed to be happy they were both alive? What would Lance say if he were the one trying to cheer Keith up and not the other way around? "Unless they decide to park the castle on Earth after the war," he decided. "That I guess that would work for everyone. There'd be no reason to stay in space if I was doing it alone."

Lance opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to say something and looking like whatever he wanted to say had something to do with Keith abandoning him for the endless void of space. No words actually came out though, and he closed his mouth and forced a weak smile to agree, "They'd actually blend in pretty easily with humans, huh? Can't imagine what they'd do for jobs, though."

Oh thank god he wasn't going there. Communication was one thing, but there was also shit that just didn't need to be dealt with today and whatever happened at the end of the war was a fight that could wait til much, much later. "Well they've got alien magic and understanding of superadvanced technology, so… Probably theater. They both got pretty into that space pirate schtick."

A genuine laugh from Lance, music to Keith's ears. "Sounds perfect. They'll take Broadway by storm."

There was, finally, a moment of silence that wasn't tense and miserable. It… Did not last long. There was a question Keith hadn't needed to ask to know the answer to, an unpleasant churn of worry gnawing away at him from the bottom of his stomach. "Please stop exploding," Keith pleaded out of nowhere. "I know you somehow got this ridiculous impression that you're like, less valuable than the rest of us, but it's not true and you're not replaceable and I REALLY need you to stop doing things that almost kill you."

Lance looked momentarily taken aback. It slid off quickly, replaced at once with contriteness as he argued back, "Okay but you weren't there! If I hadn't set off that guy's grenade then I really WOULD have died! I was outnumbered and pinned down and had like, zero other options available at the time!"

The sick roiling in his gut became even worse at the mental image. "I just need you to be more careful with your own life, okay! You SAY you had no choice this time, but I bet you also said you didn't have a choice any of the times you threw yourself in front of one of us, and god damn it, if I had to promise to think before I do stupid shit then so do you!"

Lance's jaw was open again like he had an argument ready, but cut himself off before any words came out with a sharp inhalation of breath. "I can't help that I want to protect you guys, okay?!"

Stubborn son of a - "You're not the only one, stupid, we all want to protect you, too!"

A moment of stunned silence. "I…" Lance started fruitlessly. Put his forehead in one hand. And then, after a long, froglike noise, began to laugh. "Okay," he agreed between peals of quiet, exhausted laughter. "Okay, you got me." He lifted his head to extend his hand to Keith, offering his pinky finger. "Promise to try?"

Keith looked at the proffered finger. Figured the appropriate thing to do was hook it with his own and agree, "Promise to try." It wouldn't stop either one of them from sucking so hard, but it was a start.

After they shook on it they didn't bother to break their hold, resting their hands on the cold floor between them with twining pinky fingers joining them together.

And that was about the time someone finally showed up on the bridge. "Keith!" Shiro could be heard calling before he was even visible in the doorway. "I got a flag saying your healing pod opened, is everything…" When he did appear in the doorway it was with a raised eyebrow, having already caught sight of Keith and Lance before they noticed him. Which, come to think of it, they were kind of sitting on the floor with their jumpsuits half peeled off with no visible explanation as to why, so. Yeah. A little confusion was warranted. "Okay…"

Lance seemed to agree. Why his reaction to such awkwardness was to slowly lift one leg into the air, Keith would never know. "Wimmy wham-wham wazzle?"

Shiro looked mildly concerned for him. Lance rolled to his feet to dust imaginary lint off his legs, and declared, "AS IT WERE, I was just on my way to get some pants! New pants. Excellent pants, even. SPACE PANTS."

Keith and Shiro watched as he awkwardly backed out of the room, fingergunning away as he slunk into the hall. Shiro blinked. "Is there... Any kind of explanation for what just happened?"

"Covering blind panic with a flashy exit, I'd wager." Keith decided, rising into standing. And he would also wager he knew the reason for Lance's hasty retreat as well, and that reason was over six feet of pure disappointment that had just walked in to stand next to Keith. He drew in a deep breath of air, turning to Shiro with the question, "So you know what happened down there, right?"

Shiro's eyes closed, and he sighed a heavy huff of breath through his nose before opening them again. "Yes. We haven't made contact with UAGRA or the Queen since we left, but we were able to confirm what Lance was telling me through a line between Pidge and Lala. It's… pretty gruesome." He looked towards Keith. "But what we haven't been able to piece together yet is what exactly happened to you and Lance to put you in such a shape in the first place. The last thing any of us knows is that you were both at dinner the night before, then by mid-morning you were shot half to death with four geruda and a fleet of Galra with you. It's… a little concerning."

Keith kind of wished he could barrel-roll out the door and into hiding, too. Awkwardly avoiding eye contact, Keith waded through his thoughts to find something he could say. Shit, he hated this part. Admitting to Shiro he'd done something stupid and almost died, again, was just about torture; Keith's heart felt tight and hot like it was being squeezed by the force of his own anxiety. "I… It's my fault. I thought I had a lead, and I got too eager and jumped in without thinking, and Lance noticed and jumped in with me." His hand balled into a fist at his side, rushing through the rest as quickly as he could because he needed to get that band-aid off now. "I knew that Veret would lead me right to the Galra, but we just both ended up getting captured. While we were escaping we couldn't avoid combat, and… Lance exploded. Because that's apparently just what he does."

"And rushing head first into your own death is apparently just what you do," Shiro huffed angrily, the harshness of his tone biting into Keith. "You didn't tell anyone, you didn't bring your communicator, and you didn't give any consideration to what all the rest of us would do or feel when we realized you had just vanished!" Keith's head was bowed, staring at his chest with stinging eyes and feeling the kind of small and ashamed that only knowing he had disappointed Shiro could make him feel. As if he didn't feel guilty enough for almost getting Lance killed and scarring his legs, now he had had to endure this, knowing how much he'd frustrated and let Shiro down...

Shiro sighed again, deeper and heavier and far, far more exhausted. "I just… I know you can be better than this Keith. You're smart and you're capable and I trust you can make good decisions, but you get all worked up and rush head first into terrible ideas and I don't know how to get you to stop and just think for a minute."

"I know ," Keith's voice was low and strained, and he winced at the slight crack at the end of it. "I just - I was all fucked up in the head and I wasn't thinking and I know, okay? I know I fucked up." Shit. Shit shit shit, this was the worst, this was the thing he'd always been most afraid of, that'd he'd say or do something so stupid and ridiculously Keith that'd he'd lose Shiro and god damn if this wasn't enough to get him kicked out of here and -

A shorter final sigh, and Shiro's hand landed heavy on his shoulder. "You did succeed though. You both survived and you found what we came here looking for. Even if you keep making me feel like Police Commissioner Gordon in the process."

Keith blinked, shaking the anxious train of thought off to look up at Shiro. "You... are not the first person to compare me to Batman this month."

"That's not a good thing Keith. Batman is a crazy person."

Keith ducked his head into his shoulders timidly. "Sounds about right?"

Shiro rolled his eyes. "You're not crazy, Keith, you're just… wired differently than most people. Everyone has their own shit to deal with, and your…" He frowned for a moment. "...The things they used to medicate you for back on Earth happen to be some of your shit. It doesn't make you any different from anyone else on any planet."

Oddly enough, that actually did make him feel better. "I'm still sorry."

Shiro let a long moment pass. Then, slapped Keith hard on the shoulder. "You should be. I can't stand lecturing people like this, you look like a kicked puppy right now."

"Yeah," Keith let a small chuckle fall from his throat. "You're really not cut out to be the Head Adult In Charge. I kind of feel sorry for you."

"You should," Shiro lamented dramatically. "I never wanted to be Mufasa, Keith. No one does. I just want to watch cartoons and eat cereal in my underpants."

"Don't we all," Keith agreed wistfully.

They let a comfortable silence settle between them, in which Keith considered that he wished he was wearing clothes because his unzipped back and shoulders were getting cold.

"This sucks," Shiro declared. "When was the last time we just hung out? It's like every moment of our lives is just worrying."

Keith thought about that. "I feel like the only thing we do is train together." He directed an awkward, if genuine smile at Shiro. "Let me go put on a shirt and I'll meet you in the Rec Room."

The Five Ball was sitting right against the side bumper, smiling stripe-side up like it was waiting for Keith to tap it into the hole just ten inches away. The Ten was sitting just in between the cueball and his intended target, and he had yet to decide if he wanted to through it or use its force to bump the Five.

Straight through, he decided. Crouched down over the table to line up his shot. Carefully aimed, and…

"DON'T SCRATCH" Shiro shouted, just in time to surprise Keith's pool cue into banging against the floor of the table and scrape against the cueball enough to send it into a light spin and nothing more.

"God quizkacking son of a bitch!" Keith swore, barely resisting the urge to turn around and break his pool cue over Shiro's stupid head.

"Oh, man," Shiro said from behind him, voice thick with fake sympathy. "After I just said not to scratch."

Keith felt his hand fist tightly around his pool cue, and he took in a deep breath. Shiro, he knew, did not get many opportunities to be an asshole, and seldom took advantage of them when he did. He knew this, which is how he knew that when Shiro did go out of his way to be obnoxious, it was always for the same reason. He was stressed to the point of snapping and Keith was the only person he was close enough to be able to pick on. Well. They were all stressed, right? Even Shiro needed a bit of catharsis.

And oh, what an honor it was to be this man's surrogate little brother. "How careless of me," Keith said flatly, leveling a glare at Shiro as he went round the other side of the table to try his own shot. "Let's hope you have better luck…" Keith watched Shiro lean over the table, waiting for the exact moment Shiro pulled back his cue to finish with "- on yours," with a sharp kick to one leg of the pool table.

Shiro's hand slipped, changing the course of the cueball as it spun. But only enough so that it veered to hit the Six ball next to the one he'd actually been aiming for, sending both balls rolling unsteadily to fall into the left center pocket one after another.

"You son of a bitch," Keith swore to Shiro's great entertainment. "You absolute asshole, how do you keep DOING these things!"

Shiro wasn't even trying to contain his laughter, walking around a few feet to line up his next shot, which was of course, the last ball he had left to make. "I blame you for suggesting we play." Keith didn't bother trying to mess with him again, watching with mild annoyance as Shiro easily sunk the shot. "In fact, wasn't it your idea to even build this thing in the first place?"

"Yeah," Keith agreed absently, still caught up in the train of thought that was hoping for Shiro to choke on his final shot. "Lance and I hadn't figured out how to hang out yet, so most of our first date ended up being the lot of us building something to do."

Shiro's eyebrows drew together while he took aim at the Eight ball, and he stopped to look at Keith with the question, "That was your first date?"

Oh yeah, they'd never told anyone about how they started dating because it was moronic and embarrassing. "Uh, it was a little short notice? Lance still insists he could have done better, but I figure if we both had fun then it was a good date."

Shiro just kept looking at him like he was trying to decide if he had something to say about that, and Keith couldn't help feeling a little defensive. "I mean. We also like, talked and stuff, we didn't spend our entire first date around other people."

Shiro's mouth closed and he raised up his hands in a gesture that was technically designed to show he was unarmed but considering he was still holding a pool cue just looked kind of placating. "No, I'm not thinking anything like that, I guess I'm just." He lowered his hands, looking reluctant to continue. "Impressed you guys even had a first date at all."

Keith felt his head jerk back in offended alarm. "And what's that supposed to mean? How are we supposed to have not had a first date?"

The bottom of Shiro's cue hit the floor with a tap, and he averted his eyes from Keith. "Well, neither of you bothered to tell anyone when you started dating, so I guess we all just assumed it started on accident because you guys kept making out."

Keith felt his jaw drop. "Wow. I am… Just so god damned flattered by the collective opinion that instead of actually liking each other we just couldn't keep it in our pants."

Shiro's eyes rolled to the ceiling with a huffed sigh. "I didn't mean it like that. I just - you never said anything! If there was actually anything to actually say about it then at least Lance would have told someone, but you guys just started… cuddling and playing footsie with no explanations of any kind."

That… was a good point, actually. Lance of course had had no idea what was going on at the time because the idea that he could date Keith had not yet managed to occur to him, but Keith could have told Shiro about it like, the next day if he'd wanted. But… It had been too new and too uncertain and too private, and putting it into words would have added too much weight. Admitting to Shiro that he and Lance were together meant admitting to himself that there was something actually there and not just one of Lance's random whims, that whatever was going on was real, and god, there was just too much to lose… There had always been too much to lose, and subconsciously he'd always known it, but. He'd ignored it, because Lance was warm and funny and Keith liked the way he felt when they were together. "Ah," he said lamely. "Yeah, we kind of… did end up keeping it pretty private." Still, though. "But I'd still hope you know I'd have better judgement than to randomly start making out with one of my teammates. There's only seven of us for fuck's sake."

"Don't be like that," Shiro said tiredly like a teenager's guardian trying to have an argument with them. Which… was actually sort of exactly what he was? "Nobody ever said there was any problem, right? It's not like we were looking down at you like a pair of horny barnyard animals." He scratched at the back of his head, looking truly exhausted. "How do I begin to put this…"

Keith raised an eyebrow, but didn't go as far as uncrossing his arms. Shiro seemed to have something to say, even if he couldn't imagine what.

Finally looking back at Keith as he leaned his weight casually on the pool table, Shiro started, "When I first realized you two had started getting… romantic, my reaction was instant disappointment." He didn't give Keith time to relax, quickly moving on with, "A little bit in you and Lance, but mostly just disappointed in myself. For not having seen this coming."

Keith was not sure if he wanted to be offended or not yet. "Oh… kay."

"Because when I thought about it," Shiro continued. "I realized how completely and totally inevitable this had been. Partly because you're very gay and Lance is very Lance and eventually those would… intersect, but mainly just because of how you guys were. I still haven't figured out at what point your flirting became intentional, because it started as soon as we got to space."

Keith felt his face flush. "W- I was not flirting from day one!"

"You were," Shiro assured him with conviction. "In your own Keith way." He raised his voice inaccurately high in pitch as he adopted an exaggeratedly sultry tone to recite, "'Hey Lance, I got you your lion back~' "

"Fuck you, I did not sound like that!"

"You did, though, I heard it with my own ears. Honestly, I was embarrassed for you." Shiro grinned, deftly avoiding the kick Keith aimed at his calf. "But no, I'm not kidding. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that it didn't matter how it actually happened, because it was always going to. We could be in some bizarro timeline where Lance somehow started dating Allura the day we got into space, and it would do nothing except delay the point in which the two of you wind up indiscriminately snogging. It could have been years down the line, but fortunately it wasn't, and we did not all have to go through some awkward unresolved sexual tension built up from years of mutual pining."

Keith was… floored, maybe? He was having trouble registering ideas or emotions right now, possibly because of how distracted he was by his face starting on fire. "O-oh. That's, um. Romantic."

"Something like that," Shiro said in a tone that said it was more inconvenient than anything. "So, yeah. Ultimately it doesn't matter what I think, or what anyone else thinks, and it never has. The only thing matters is whether or not you're happy, and I'd be damned to claim that Lance hasn't at least been able to do that for you."

Well. That was a nice thought, that warmed Keith's little heart, but… It really wasn't true though, was it? Shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other and back, Keith tried not to look uncomfortable. "Well. Besides the space war, anyway."

Shiro finally looked at Keith again - really looked at him, like he was searching for something in Keith he'd only just realized he'd never seen before. "The space war is important, yes, but… You know that it still doesn't take priority over your actual personal well being right?"

Was… Was he really having this conversation? With Shiro this time, of all people? "I don't know about 'well-being', but I mean. The billions and billions of oppressed lives seem a little bit higher priority than whether or not I'm having a good day."

Shiro's eyes pinched shut, and his whole body drew up tense. "Keith, that's not how this works. Living like that will only break you. It's impossible for a person to live only for the sake of others, you have to take care of your own happiness first or you'll never be able to take care of anyone else." Opening his eyes to look at Keith again, he said seriously, "You're allowed to be selfish sometimes, Keith. You're allowed to have things for yourself, even if they're hard work." A pause. "Whatever that happiness might be for you."

He... was really supposed to believe this, huh? Keith knew in theory all these things, had been told them before, but that was usually by therapists and Keith had never particularly trusted them to begin with. It seemed impossible and incomprehensible - what was his one stupid usually miserable life weighed against the lives of everyone under the entire Galra Empire? But at the same time he couldn't say that being miserable and alone and crazy certainly been helping him be a more efficient soldier, either… "I… I guess I know that," he tried reluctantly.

Shiro just looked defeated, picking his pool cue back up to finish off the last shot they'd put off. "Just think about it, okay? Eight ball, corner right."

Eventually, he was cornered. Pidge and Hunk finally caught up with Keith after a few hours, tracking him down to Red's bay where there were a few choice words regarding almost dying and then ditching the healing pod before his friends could see he was okay. Which, yeah fair, but Keith was also still massively humiliated about how they'd almost died, and didn't really wanna relive his own stupidity when they inevitably asked what the fuck had happened.

Fortunately for Keith, Pidge and Hunk were awesome, and accepted 'I don't wanna talk about it' with little objection, though obviously carrying the (extremely accurate) assumption that Keith had done something stupid.

After that… it was just kind of weird. Keith had been clawing at the walls with the need to get off Elpis and back into space, but now that that had finally happened he just felt… empty. Like he'd failed himself and an entire planet, and had no choice but to twiddle his thumbs and hope for the best.

Probably because that had been exactly what happened.

Aside from that, unspoken and unintentionally, he and Lance were locked in an awkward orbit around each other where they both felt like they were supposed to be saying or doing something with no idea what. By the time dinner had come and gone Keith had found his stomach twisted in too many inexplicable knots to be hungry, and had afterwards done little more than go back to his room and catch up on sleep.

He didn't know how long the nap lasted, only that he woke up to a knock on his door. And whom should appear when he opened it but Lance, in all his awkward handsome glory. "Hey, Keith," he sounded more nervous than he really needed to. "What's up? Er, napping, I bet, but um. Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to like… Go for a walk with me?"

Keith blinked. "A walk?"

"Yeah," Lance nodded, scratching the back of his neck before ending it in a shrug. "You know, to talk or whatever. Get to know each other better."

Get to… Oh. That was what he'd said that first night he'd accidentally asked Keith out, the words that had confused Keith into thinking it was supposed to be a date in the first place.

Something inside of Keith broke apart in that moment, like a glass wall shattering under a tidal wave. The tsunami that swelled inside of him was warm, though, somehow comfortable and unearthly intense at the same time, and Keith couldn't have fought the smile if he'd wanted to. "I'd like that."

"So this was just a day job for Javier, he had a real chef's position in another restaurant but it was the slow season so he picked up this simple line cook job. And he's only supposed to be working the grill and fryer technically, but being who he is and compulsively working hard meant he ended up making half the food in the kitchen. So one night the manager tells him to make a pot of split pea soup. And normally this would be fine, but the thing with Javier is there's only one food in the world he can't stand, and it's split pea soup."

A little huffed laugh from Keith, supplying an interested noise to prompt, "Oh, yeah?"

"Oooh yeah," Lance grinned, waving the kitchen knife in his hand inappropriately before returning to his cutting board and story both. "So he decides, fuck it, this isn't his job anyway, right? He was gonna make this soup so awful they'd never ask him to make it again, and that'd be the end of it."

"That's one way to handle that," Keith snorted as he finished peeling another weird vegetable and putting on the table for Lance to dice.

"So he starts off making the soup like normal," Lance continued, slicing the round orange foodstuff into halves to rest flat on the board. "And then when he's about done he adds the salt. And then more salt. And then, for good measure, a little extra salt."

Keith couldn't help but match Lance's grin, taking up the other half to cut himself. "Jesus, did anybody die from it? Dried up and shriveled from dehydration like snails?"

Lance laughed. "Oh, even better. So the cook next to him is like, what the hell are you doing, man? But Javi just smiles that wicked little imp smirk and raises his eyebrows like he knows exactly what he's doing, stirs it all in. And obviously he's not gonna be the one to test it first, he doesn't even know what that shit is supposed to taste like, so he gets the other cook to try it first. And he's dubious 'cause he saw what the fuck Javi did to it, but he has the first spoonful anyway. And my cousin stands there grinning to himself, watching the way the sous chef's eyes go wide, and he's like 'dude, go get the manager.'" Having sliced up their selection of unknown fruitstuffs, Lance moves from the cutting board to the pan warming on the stove.

"Do you have any idea what you're trying to cook right now?" Keith interrupted, watching Lance pour a random measure of a liquid approximately the color and consistency of coconut oil, but smelled more like bananas. Actually the smell was kind of familiar, how did Keith know this?

"I am a genius at everything I do; silence, faithless one." Lance assured without looking at Keith. "Anyway, so the manager comes for a taste, and Javi's ready to hear it, right? And the manager gets this surprised looker on her face, and tries a second spoonful," the oil was heating up in the pan enough for the burned-banana smell that he'd passed by in Concordia half a dozen times, and Keith realizes that it was the exact scent that had wafted off of the stall selling lube that Keith may or may not have purchased but not tested yet. Thankfully Lance was too preoccupied by sliding the assortment of vegetation they'd chopped up into the oil to notice Keith blanch in embarrassment, going on to finish his story with, "...and she says, 'Shit Javi, what did you do? This is the best god damned soup I've ever tasted.'"

A short bark of laughter was surprised out of Keith, derailing his odd train of thought. "Wait, seriously?"

"Yuuup," Lance grinned. "This asshole's so good at cooking even when he TRIES to fuck up he can't."

"Amazing," Keith praised with a light chuckle, leaning over Lance's shoulder to watch their makeshift dinner start to sizzle. "So, you learned to cook from him, then?"

"Nah, he lives in Cuba so when we see each other we don't have time to do anything but fuck around and party. I can only cook like, three things on the planet and two of them involve noodles and the last one involves rice."

Keith blinked, then raised an eyebrow at the pan over Lance's shoulder. "I knew it, there was no way you knew what you were doing. Even Hunk barely knows what he's doing in here and he actually can cook."

Lance rolled his eyes, but there was still a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "It's stirfry, how hard could it be? If we screw up all we have to do is drown it out in hot sauce and Hunk told me which bottle is the one with chili powder in it so as far as I'm concerned there's no way we even CAN screw up." He took his eyes off the pan to turn to Keith, looking like he only just thought of something. "Unless you know how to cook? You lived by yourself, you probably cook better than I do, I basically only needed to know how to make macaroni to please the kids."

Keith considered his own history with cooking, and wondered how badly he'd get made fun of for it. Well, not like he was gonna lie about it, right? "I… can make a wide variety of canned goods by stovetop. Mostly beans."

Lance looked genuine horrified by the answer. "You survived a year in the desert on BEANS?"

"Well, I mean. I like baked beans, so. Yeah, that and some spaghetti-o's."

Lance's horror enveloped his whole body, like Keith had just told him he'd been eating dogs that entire time. "You ate baked beans, alone in a desert shack. FOR A YEAR. Voluntarily." He buried his face in his hands. "You're a cowboy. I'm dating an asian cowboy, what has happened to my life."

Well that was… Not everyone from Texas was a cowboy. Probably. Instead of that, Keith decided to try to make the situation worse by offering. "You're dating a gay asian cowboy. In space."

"Cojones d'fuckin' Dios." That did not sound like a real swear people said, but it did sound like it translated to 'God's fuckin' balls,' which was close enough. "And I like you. I like the weirdest person in the universe."

Keith grinned, bumping into Lance's shoulder with his own on the way to lean over and poke at the stir fry. "Yeah, but at least the weirdest guy in the universe likes you back."

When Lance raised his head out of his palm he was smiling, and he returned the bump to Keith's own shoulder. "Well I hope Shiro can cook at least, because I know Pidge can't and so far we're at one for five."

"We're definitely at one for five," Keith confirmed. "Shiro's favorite food is Fruit Loops. That man needs to be saved."

Lance actively laughed, and the sound was so breathtakingly refreshing Keith instantly realized he didn't know the last time he'd heard his own boyfriend genuinely laugh like this. Whooops. They'd get better at this, he swore. "HE needs to be saved, when your favorite food is apparently baked beans. At least fruit loops aren't an old man food, dude, you lived like a literal hobo."

"You really think calling me a hobo all the time is gonna help you get laid, stupid?" To spite the words Keith was chuckling, too, relieved and happy that the tension had finally drained enough for them to tease each other again.

Lance's grin turned into a smirk and he lifted one flirtatious eyebrow to turn on Keith with, "I think the only thing I need to do if I wanna get laid is touch you."

There was a pause where the two of them looked at each other, mutual embarrassed flushes heating their faces while dinner sizzled loudly next to them. "Um," Lance hesitated, looking like he wasn't sure if he was trying to take the words back or not.

There was an unspoken understanding between them that it was, at this stage, too early to jump back into having sex again. That left them at rather an awkward standstill right now, neither of them sure how to proceed after this without having to actually say something stupid like 'Obviously, not tonight, though.' The silence went on long enough to pass being awkward straight into absurd, and it was broken by Keith snorting a laugh back up into his throat and grinning, "You're such a douchebag."

Lance laughed himself, but it was with relief. "I kind of am, yeah."

Plucking a heat-seared piece of yellow fruit into his mouth and finding it to taste like if a coconut and a pineapple fucked and had a mutant baby, Keith declared, "But you're a douchebag who actually pulled dinner off, on the plus side."

The slightly self-deprecating smile on Lance's face beamed from the force of his ego to turn into a familiar smirk. "I told you stir-fry was easy! This is why you need to trust the master; I, the great jack-of-all trades, have once again saved the day, feeding my useless and eternally hungry boyfriend after you skipped another meal like a dummy!"

It was quite possibly the most Lance thing he had ever heard. Keith couldn't have kept the smile off his face if he'd tried. "My hero," he praised, and though to Lance it probably sounded sarcastic because that's kind of just what Keith's voice did… he really kind of meant it. He'd missed hanging out with Lance so much.

Dinner was done by that point, and there wasn't much room for conversation while they ate. Mostly because Lance was right on both accounts, that being that Keith was starving and dinner had, in fact, turned out well with or without egregious chili powder usage.

"I've heard this one," Keith interrupted, cutting off Lance mid-word in his story. "This is the one that ends with you and Nick trying to learn how to juggle knives, right?"

Lance's face fell. "You've heard this one? It's only been three months I can't be out of stories already!"

A short laugh. "That's what you get for talking all the time," he teased, pushing the last vegetables around on his plate with his spork and trying to decide if he had enough room left to try and eat them.

"If you don't like how much I talk then you shouldn't be dating me, it is ninety percent of what I do." Keith only laughed harder, and Lance scowled at him so hard Keith couldn't actually tell if he meant it or not. "Since you're SO sick of my stories already, why don't you tell one for a change?" Oh shit, he kind of had Keith there, didn't he? Lance made a vague spinny sort of 'go ahead' gesture with one hand. "Tell me something I don't know. How about you tell me about one of these mysterious expulsions I've heard so much about."

Keith thought about this, considering which of said occurrences would make for the most interesting story. Well, he knew which was most flattering out of them, so he might as well start there. "Okay, uh, then eighth grade, before I ended up at the Catholic school. I was fourteen, and Louisa Jeffries was a grade higher than me so she must have been fifteen at the time."

Lance looked intrigued. "Louisa Jeffries?" He asked on cue.

Keith nodded, pretty confident he knew how to tell this story coherently, if not interestingly. "Yeah, we were in art together, the school cut funding on art so grades eight and nine just crammed together in the same drawing electives. There were no assigned seats but she and I always sat at the same table, because everyone else in the class were all friends and we were the only two who never talked to anybody."

"And she got you expelled?"

"No," Keith instantly denied, then hesitated. "Well not directly, anyway. There's… kind of a whole story to it."

Lance made an appropriately 'go on' sort of face, and Keith settled in to tell the tale, a little self-conscious knowing that Lance was so much better with words than he was. "Uh, so we sat next to each other pretty much the whole semester, but never particularly talked. But it was obvious she was taking this class for fun and not just to get the credit because she was actually really good at drawing, took her time on all her projects and they always turned out amazing, even if she always turned them in late. And um, at the end of the year for her last project she took a frame from a superhero movie and a panel of the original comic it was based off and redrew both of them, I don't remember what the assignment was but I remember watching her draw them both.

"And she turned them in late like she always did, so she wasn't gonna get her grade back on it right away. But then it was a few days later and Louisa kept asking the teacher if she'd gotten a grade back yet and the teacher kept dodging the question, and said something weird like 'it looks so good it could be a photocopy,' which sounds like a compliment but then the second time he said it became kind of obvious it was more of a backhanded accusation than a compliment on her art. And Lousia got upset because she took her art seriously, and to be accused of cheating and photocopying a project just for a lousy art grade in a class she wasn't even failing? Like, I'm not even an artist and I can tell that's fucked up. And she got mad in that half-crying way that comes with anxiety and standing up to an authority figure, I have a short temper that overrides my anxiety but that's just because anxiety isn't my biggest problem and without that anger there's just fear -" he cut himself off with a frown, not liking the direction he'd wandered off into.

"And anyway she tried to, um. Stand up for herself, saying that he was insulting her integrity as an artist, and I remember that integrity is the word she used because the teacher took it and turned it around on her, and in a fucked up and just plain grammatically incorrect twist brought up the time she wore a shirt that she didn't know turned transparent under fluorescent lights and ended up showing everyone her entire bra all day, like even if she had done it on purpose showing off her tits had ANYTHING AT ALL to do with her integrity as an artist! And she got so mad she just shut down, and was just standing there shaking and trying not to cry, and I was right there listening to the entire thing not two feet away, and it was just so disgusting… " Keith spat out the word, remembered righteous indignation on the behalf of someone he considered no different than himself. Louisa had been quiet, and terrible with people, and got upset too easily, and had never judged Keith for being the exactly the same way. "So, I kind of. Punched him. Because she wasn't gonna do anything, and I didn't know how else to deal with the situation and didn't think to just like… say that I'd watched her draw it instead of assaulting a middle-aged Mormon school teacher."

When he finally looked back at Lance from the general direction of the ceiling Keith had been concentrating on, his jaw hung open. "I don't even… what the shit," was all he managed to express. "I can see where you came from; what a dick. I mean, yeah violence probably was not the absolute wisest reaction, but…"

"No but it is how a crazy person would react, which is how I got there," Keith muttered, more by accident than intent.

It was a mistake to say it. Lance frowned at him, dismissing Keith's phrasing with an easy, "Don't say that, you're not crazy. Just… Impulsive."

And shit, there was the rub. Because what this here was? An opportunity to be honest. Fuuuuccckkkk, Keith did not want to do this, especially not now of all times… Shit. He was totally doing this, wasn't he? "Well," he said shortly, staring at the light yellow oil trail smeared across his plate leftover from his stir-fry. "In a very technical, legal sort of sense...I am?"

He didn't have to look to hear Lance's frown. "Because of… the anxiety? What do you mean, legally?"

Staring even harder at his plate, Keith leaned back in his chair that he might look casual. "Um, the anxiety a little, but mostly I mean my uh… fully diagnosed personality disorder, paranoia. That I took medication for. Back in foster care."

Lance's voice was strained. "Para… Waitwaitwait, you mean like, 'my landlord is a lizard man' PARANOIA paranoia? I…"

Keith's gut was roiling, and he kind of wanted to throw up all the food he had just eaten, but okay this was cool. "That's not quite how mine manifested itself but… basically in theory yeah that's… that's the one." A brief silence where both of them figured that warranted a tad more explanation, which Keith considered. "I don't have hallucinations or anything, but um." He let his eyes drift to the ceiling, still unable or unwilling to look at Lance. "Let's see, like… I don't remember much from my first couple years, but I know the places I lived all really sucked. I didn't have any concept of that at the time, I just knew that the first time I wound up at a foster home that wasn't terrible I knew something about it was different. But I guess since I had no idea what a childhood was supposed to be like, when the lady I lived with was actually nice and there were no other kids and enough money to feed both of us, I didn't know how to deal with that and got suspicious. But I was also like, five and didn't know what I was afraid of, so the only thing I could think of was that she must be a witch trying to fatten me up to eat me, so I stopped eating food at her house."

"Jesus christ," Lance swore, but Keith needed to peel this bandaid off and didn't let it pause him.

"...So at some point I guess a teacher caught me rifling through the dumpster for apples and called a bunch of adults together to figure out what was going on with me, and that's around the time they started coming up with diagnoses, and uh, paranoia was the one we landed on. And so they moved me to live with someone more equipped to deal with mentally ill children, which, did not work out either, since nothing ever does. Or. Did back then, anyway."

He finally chanced a look at his boyfriend to find him slack-jawed and wide-eyed from his horror. "I… did not notice even a little bit," Lance admitted in awe. "Like… seriously? This is like an actual serious mental thing, and like, nothing you did ever even seemed weird." Brows drawn together tightly, he ran an exasperated hand over his own head, messing up his short hair terribly. "I mean, the MGE being a gang and the whole Veret thing you were both RIGHT about, does that like, even still count as being paranoid?"

"Oh, it definitely does," Keith promised, suddenly feeling terribly tired.

Lance looked concerned still but not directed at Keith, rather more like he was frantically searching his brain for examples of Keith being crazy. "I mean, I guess you were way more threatened by that Arusian with a stick than you needed to be, and I think I remember at one point you accused the mice of treason..."

"Okay, that Arusian was their greatest warrior, and it was a fully functional weapon not a stick!" Keith defended automatically, which, maybe not the point he should be focusing on. Also, just because they supposedly had some connection to Allura did NOT mean it was okay just go ahead and completely trust a set of superintelligent mice without even questioning it, like, let's be practical here. Those assholes were suspicious as fuck, and what did they care if the castle belonged to them or the Galra, huh? Oh shit, he was doing it again. Damn it, Keith.

"Or… whatever, there's also a lot of shit I haven't told anyone about because I know it's irrational because I know I'm crazy," like his secret fear that Shiro really had died on the Kerberos mission and this was an imposter or his brainwashed corpse trying to trick them all, but that one was usually dispelled just by talking to his friend for a few minutes. No one but the real Shiro could possibly be so filled with such exhausted cynical despair. Or a fake would at least be better at hiding it. "But aside from all that, there's also the issue of like, jealousy and trust problems that means people with paranoia are kind of shit at maintaining relationships. Which, you might have noticed."

Lance sat back heavily in his chair, exhaling a low overwhelmed breath of air from his lungs in a long huff. "Jesus quiznakcing fuck. Like, seriously, I have ADHD and middle-child syndrome but that's nowhere near an actual mental illness." Personality disorder, Keith did not correct out loud. "I barely even know what this means, much less how to deal with it…"

"You don't have to," Keith said, ready to sigh himself. "I already have it pretty much under control, and it's not even a particularly severe case. It just… seemed like the sort of problem that might come up in our relationship, and maybe I should mention it before that."

He heard more than saw Lance's head thump onto the tabletop. "Yeah, no kidding," he muttered listlessly. When he raised his head it was only as far as to drop it into his hands. "That is it though, right? Not hiding anything else you really should have told me about ages ago?"

Did Keith starting to suspect he might actually somehow be a Galra count? Nah, that was another one of those paranoid things that didn't make enough realistic sense to share. "No," he denied. "Oh, wait," he reconsidered, all that mess about Keith's waffling on breaking up was probably… Well he was really leaning towards a hard 'no' on that one so it probably didn't matter anymore. "Nah, nevermind, there's nothing."

Lance glared at him. "You're giving me the feeling it's definitely Something."

Keith hesitated, knowing this would only stir up more trouble but at the same time understanding that it was kind of unavoidable. "Er… well, it uh, doesn't so much matter anymore, but for the last few weeks I was kind of… trying to decide if us dating was even a good idea in the first place?"

"KEITH!" Lance barked, hands slamming on the tabletop as he leaned over it enough to jam their faces into a space only inches apart. "YOU HAVE TO TELL ME THIS SHIT!"

"I'm sorry?!" Keith jerked back with an apologetic shrug.

Beyond distraught, Lance flailed about. "What did I do?! Was it because of that fight we had?"

"No!" Keith shook his head so fast his hair whipped his eyes. Then hesitated again. "Or… also yes? Not technically, but it was because of one of the things we were fighting about, but I had been thinking it before the actual argument..." He sighed shortly, then ran a hand through his own hair to have an excuse to break eye contact, because Lance kind of looked like Keith had plunged a hand in his chest and started routing around to try and find his heart.

"It was just… me being me, and I didn't like how I can never get you out of my head and started panicking about it." The words came out easier than expected, and more honest than he'd expected as well; a torrent of his doubts and anxieties spilling forward at once. "I kept thinking there should only be room in my head for the war, I feel like I'm distracted and about to be blindsided by an attack or tragedy at any moment and now that I say all this out loud it kind of actually sounds ridiculous but it's been bothering me a lot that I'm not like, on edge like I usually am and I feel like somehow I'm in a constant state of letting my guard down, which, come to think of it, is probably... supposed to be the point of dating in the first place, huh?" He finished lamely, forehead starting to hurt from how tightly he'd had his eyebrows drawn. And also because he'd given himself a headache from his own stupidity, probably. "I don't know, not the good, intimacy-kind-of letting my guard down, I guess, but the… everyone gets murdered kind."

Lance, because everything he did he used his entire body for, flung backwards into his seat and slapped his hands to his face to run down dramatically, like Keith's stupidity had taken tangible form and had to be scraped off of his skin like mud. "How did you manage to get your entire brain to work backwards," he pleaded to the heavens, before looking Keith seriously in the eye. "Okay, so obviously a lot of this you didn't tell me because it's coming from the paranoia and I get that there's no way I can understand that." He looked momentarily indecisive, before pushing up out of his seat to stand. Keith met the gesture without thinking, and they were both standing to the side of the table to look each other in the eye properly, because maybe this was not a conversation to have while three feet across from each other and sitting down.

When Lance started again his voice was heavy, one hand reached out close enough to bridge the miles-deep gap between them with one hand landing high on Keith's arm to sear his skin with warmth through the thin cotton of his shirt sleeve. "But it sounds to me like that's just living in fear instead of fighting against it, Keith. We're not living our lives for the sake of fighting in this war; we're fighting in the war for the sake of being able to live our lives." Lance looked desperate, and a little sad, and Keith ached for him so badly he wanted nothing more in this world than to be able to hold his hand. When he did, Lance's skin wasn't as soft as he had remembered. "I… I don't wanna be in this war, Keith. Every battle gets more and more insane, and I'm nineteen with no combat training to know how to deal with any of this shit mentally, and I wanna go home. And when I'm so sick with that feeling that all I wanna do is take Blue and fly away as far and as fast away as I can, or curl up in a ball and never get out of bed, it's not my god damned responsibilities that keep me from cursing my fate and wishing I'd never found part of Voltron in the first place. What I think about is…" his face twisted like broken glass barely unshattered, "Is the fact that you're the one thing I could never have had if I'd stayed on Earth. The thing that makes it worth all this fighting and fear is… because I wanna come back and live the moments in between the war. And I wanna spend those moments with you, Keith."

His heart seized in his chest, and Keith could feel his hand's grip tighten around Lance's, who was returning the gesture with the hard pressure of a squeeze of his own hand laced with Keith's. "Lance, I…" Keith didn't even know what he had meant to say, just knew his voice was shaking when he tried to say it. He swallowed, throat dry. "I want to spend those moments with you, too." And he did, he realized. Keith wanted to spend his mornings training with Shiro and his afternoons being bitchy with Pidge and his evenings hanging out with Hunk or Allura or even Coran and he wanted to spend every night with Lance. Fuck. He might be able to understand what Lance's homesickness was like after all, because Keith was definitely, finally, home right here in this weird too-big castle.

Lance was somehow impossibly closer than ever, close enough to gently rest his forehead against Keith's. His voice was soft and his body was close enough to smell like… like himself, and when he quietly asked, "You don't… actually want to break up with me, do you?" Keith felt something that could have been a shudder or shiver or both run down the length of his spine.

Minutely, he shook his head, looking down to where their hands were joined to notice he was close enough for the ends of his hair to brush against Lance's collarbone. "No," he answered so quietly he felt the word in his throat better than he heard it. "I never really did."

Lance sighed, grip on Keith's hand tightening even as the rest of him visibly relaxed. "Promise to tell me if you ever do so we actually have a chance to work out our problems?"

A miniscule nod. "Start telling me when you're homesick," he returned. "You're not allowed to feel lonely when I'm around."

A light chuckle that Keith felt on his skin as much as he actually heard it. "Yeah, you got me," he sighed. "I promise."

Lance's other hand slid from his bicep down to grab Keith's and lace their fingers together. They stood for a moment, faces a heartbeat away from kissing and holding both of each other's hands."Thank you, Keith," Lance eventually said, what could have been hours later for all Keith knew. "For trusting me."

Keith definitely shuddered this time, eyes sliding closed without thinking about it. Lance met him halfway for the kiss even before Keith had leaned up to hint for one, a simple gentle meeting of lips on lips, nothing like fireworks but instead something warmer and safer and somehow more complete.

They kept kissing for a while after that. At first it was just that, a chaste exchange of lips on lips, mouths moving softly against each other as they parted and met in small kisses just for the feeling of coming together. And then they kept on kissing, mouths opening a little too wide for the temptation of tongue not to slip in as innocent meeting became nipping and sucking, falling into something passionate before either one of them realized that's what they were doing.

And, just… God, how Keith had missed this. He'd always liked kissing, it was stupid that they had ever stopped kissing. Except that that had been for a reason, and even now Keith could feel that familiar tell-tale warmth blooming low inside him as his body tried to melt against Lance's, and not that kissing had to lead to sex every time but Keith had been thirsty for weeks and it was all too easy to drag this into dangerous territory.

He broke off the kiss, Lance making no efforts to stop him as Keith stumbled backwards a pace. Lance's face was red and Keith could feel his was, too, both of them avoiding eye contact for a few embarrassed seconds as Lance coughed awkwardly.

"Dishes!" Lance declared. "Never got around to washing our dishes from dinner, I should really get on that."

"Yep," Keith nodded, covering his mouth with the back of his hand like he could wipe the embarrassed blush off his face with it. "Yeah, you should do that, and I should go like… Maybe take a shower. Never showered off all that healing pod… smell."

Lance nodded quickly with a hum. "Oh yeah, gotta take care of that. Hygiene and all."

Keith did not want to shower. He wanted to stay and go back to kissing Lance. They both hovered right there for a moment or two, before decisively, Lance leaned forward to press a quick kiss on Keith's cheek and grabbed their plates from the table.

Embarrassed, half wound-up, and completely unable to handle his emotions, Keith all but ran from the room.

Keith couldn't fall asleep that night.

He was showered and in bed and not particularly in pain from his injuries, but he couldn't stop his mind from reeling. It may have been days ago for the rest of the universe but for Keith he had just gotten out of those sewers this morning, and there was no way to keep what he'd seen in Concordia from spinning through his head.

He couldn't believe they were just going to do nothing. But at the same time, here in bed with nothing to do but think, he could also understand why. The Galra were all hidden underground and their smallest Lion was still massively gigantic, it was hardly like they could take them in there to start fucking shit up. They'd probably end up destroying the city itself by making it collapse into its own sewers, and considering the city took up almost a quarter of the planet trying to go in without Lions was absurd when they only had seven goddamned people. There was nothing they could do but wait for the RA and hope their number count would make up for Voltron's lack of maneuverability.

Maybe… Maybe they could lure out a bunch of Galra to fight in the air while the RA took back the city? He didn't know what kind of armed these rebels were, or how well-organized. Not to mention Concordia's skies were clogged with… Half the fucking city, and they'd have to lure the Galra all the way out to space to avoid smashing every building for miles around. God damn it… the most powerful weapon in the known universe and they were completely fucking useless. Keith hadn't felt this helpless since he'd wandered lost into the desert to find a shack that was supposed to be his only legal property; an inheritance no one had thought to seize from him because no one else had any earthly use for it. Not until he'd lost every good thing his life had ever gained.

Well this was depressing as hell. He needed to fall asleep. He shouldn't be thinking like this, he only had… seven hours before he wanted to be up to get back in the training room. He could always sleep in the extra two hours until they gathered for their real training, but he wanted that extra time to warm up and like. Find his zen, or whatever. Keith had always exercised in the mornings, it had never felt right to do anything else.

Oh, except for that time just when they were getting into Concordia, and Keith had cut off his training after just his stretching and basic warm-ups before he decided that Lance would benefit from a little bit of extra training himself and had, thus far, proven himself very reluctant to say no to anything Keith suggested. And then instead he'd just climbed in bed and napped with him for an hour, which he still couldn't talk himself into thinking of as a waste of time because it had been really, really nice. Falling asleep with someone else in the room had never been easy for Keith, but something about being curled up on a too-small bed and sharing Lance's body heat…

Man, he couldn't wait to spend some normal time with Lance tomorrow… It had been way too long since they'd been able to just hang out and spend time with each other like they had tonight, Keith had missed it so much. That was something that wasn't depressing to fall asleep thinking about - what should he do with Lance tomorrow?

The first and most obvious answer was to try and re-invite Lance to the training deck with him, especially now that Keith had noticed how good at shooting he'd been getting. But for one, Lance probably still wasn't um… completely okay about that whole 'felt-a-man-die' thing yet, and even if he was… well, the last time they had trained together as just a pair it had kind of turned into sex really easily. Yeah, he was guessing the whole idea was out.

Could always watch a movie and cuddle up? Ah, Keith had tried to turn that into sex last time, too. And the dancing, Keith had also turned dancing into sex, and come to think of it was he the one who had initiated sex all of the times so far? Ohhhh… no, the fingering time was definitely all Lance. Keith still wasn't sure if that made him a pervert or not, because that was like, one for four.

Was the reason it was suddenly so hard to think of anything other than sex because he was horny, or had be made himself horny by thinking too much about sex? God damn it. He was just trying to sleep.

Well, he considered. Since he was already here, he might as well jerk off, right? Since Lance was the one who had gotten freaked out about it that meant Lance also had to be the one to initiate the next time they had sex, so who knows how long it could be til they started doing this stuff together again. Plus maybe if he took care of some of this shit now he'd be less likely to get handsy when the two of them were alone, get back to dating normally like they had for like two straight months in the first place.

Okay sweet, that was decided. Keith rolled over, flopping from his stomach onto his back and shimmying into a comfortable position, kicking his sheets loose to give himself room to reach his pants. Good thing he'd started wearing these Altean pajama pants to sleep in because his own day pants were way too tight to comfortably get a hand into. Which he knew from occasions where Lance had tried to sneak a hand down his pants, he remembered with something that was in retrospect probably a smirk.

Even before that first proper time Lance had always had the tendency to get handsy when they made out, and Keith couldn't count the number of times he'd had his ass grabbed. Not that he minded, obviously. Having your ass grabbed felt awesome, it was like the pressure of a massage in overworked muscles except also sexy. Really sexy. Keith was super fucking gay and the idea of having a man pin him down and ravish him was all kinds of up his alley. And Lance had never been shy, constantly getting some part of his body in contact with Keith's ass like marking his territory or something, letting Keith know exactly what he wanted and exactly what he thought was sexy about Keith and… ugh, yeah. Good stuff.

He was getting properly warmed up now, and sliding his left hand over the seam of his pants to palm at his hardening cock through the thin fabric, feeling it thicken and rise under his hand. On his back with his eyes closed it was easy to think of Lance's cock instead of his own, because that previously established gayness very much extended to Keith loving dick, it turned out. As he had always suspected it might.

Actually, more than he had suspected. In theory sucking dick sounded kind of gross and kind of entertaining at best, but in practice… like, what even, why had that been so much fun? Lance, hard and panting and coming undone by Keith's touch, filling his mouth and taking every ounce of Keith's concentration to see what he could do to make him come, just by using his tongue for a few minutes… He licked his lips, realizing he had been unconsciously moving his tongue around inside his mouth like there was a cock in there it was trying to rub against, ending up massaging the roof of his own mouth for want of something to fill it. Shit yeah, Keith was definitely hard now.

Keith drew back his hand to lick his palm, knowing how dry it would be if he tried to touch himself directly right now. The feel of his own dick in his hand when he got there was easy and familiar, a light squeeze to the base before he started stroking himself at a languid, natural pace while he let his mind wander.

He was gonna have to do that again, clearly. Suck Lance off all the time, get really good at it. Smothering a mean chuckle into his pillow, Keith thought that they were gonna have to practice a lot to get Lance better at it too, because that had been... almost hilariously bad, actually. Augh, of course he'd kill for even a terrible blow job right now, just imagining looking down to see Lance's mouth around his dick... shit, his hand was not nearly wet enough. Once he got into it Keith had realized he didn't really need to use lotion, tended to generate enough precome that he could just use spit to slick himself the whole time, but he guessed he wasn't there yet. Sure would be convenient to have some fucking lube around, wouldn't it?

Keith blinked, hand slowing to a pause as he slowly sat up, and slowly turned his head towards the closed door of his closet. Where he actually did have oil… of some sort. It was certainly edible, they had proved that much tonight. Not everything that was edible was safe to put on your junk, but hell, there was a shower like three feet away if anything started burning, right? Now seemed like a really good time to test that paopu shit out.

He let go of his dick to hobble towards his closet, kicking off his loosened pants to wind up naked by the time he got the door open. And when he did the first thing he saw was not the jar he was looking for, but the line of very limited amounts of clothing hanging right in front of everything, and very obviously among them at the far right end of the small space was the jacket he had never managed to return to Lance.

Oh… Hm. Nah, it had stopped smelling like him ages ago, there wouldn't be any point. An indulgent little chuckle as he rifled on the floor behind his paladin armor for the jar he wanted, thinking that if nothing else Lance would have found the idea of Keith masturbating with his jacket pretty hot. Aha, actually, that wasn't a bad idea, he grinned to himself in entertainment. Do something ridiculous like jerk off wearing nothing but his boyfriend's jacket just for the sake of telling him about it later and watching Lance's mind explode out of his skull.

...Yes. Yes it was worth it just for that, he decided as he slipped the coat off of its hangar. When he slipped it on over his naked shoulders the fleece inside was soft and worn, and he giggled inanely as he kicked the oil jar towards his bed, feeling like a man who'd just gotten his hands on a secret weapon. Er, except without the bloodlust part that came with that. Red was kind of a thirsty bitch too.

Shaking that unproductive line of thought off Keith slipped back into his bed, unscrewing the lid to his oil jar now so that when he'd need it in a second here it'd be right where he could reach. He hadn't bothered masturbating at all much since he'd gotten to space and with no lube or lotion he hadn't even bothered to try any of his favorite dirty stuff; the only times he'd had his ass touched in more than half a year had been the two times Lance had gotten up in there. But man, for a while, though… when he found out that excessive masturbation was a fairly common way of dealing with grief he'd stopped feeling weird trying to jerk off in his shack and rolled with it, bought himself a vibrator and bottle of lube and pre-downloaded a bunch of porn onto his phone from a Denny's because they have free wifi and his home did not and had himself… like a month. A month of that. He still didn't feel weird about it, he'd been eighteen years old with no roommate for the first time in his life and a desperate need not to think about his current life situation. Fucking himself stupid was kind of the natural reaction to a situation like that.

Oh man, he remembered, stroking himself slowly as he settled into a comfortable spot in the corner of his bed, pillow shoved between his back and the wall. And when he'd found out about prostate orgasms and realized he could come more than once if he didn't touch his dick, and then got so ridiculously good at it that one time he somehow managed to fuck himself for two hours straight and had come more times than he could even count because of how fucked-out his brain was and at the end when he finally finished it by touching his dick he'd come so hard and so much it had splashed on the wall like some kind of porno. Actually, if he had recorded that, the whole thing probably would have made a great porno. Keith didn't know. He didn't remember a whole lot other than screaming.

He felt his asshole twitch and clench around nothing at the memory, shivering a little as he stroked himself faster. He'd have to try something like that again… not this time, it was too late now that he had already started jerking off, there was no way he could stop himself now to concentrate on only his fingers in his ass. He'd never make it to more than once tonight. But he could definitely finally have some fun.

Keith leaned forward enough off the bed to dip his fingers into the jar, leaning back to settle on one hip and curl his other leg up towards his chest. He'd be able to reach his dick again with the arm he was laying on, but more importantly he had plenty of room for the other one to reach behind himself.

This kind of thing was why he already knew he wanted to get fucked so badly. He shivered a little at the first touch of cold oily fingertips, just a little pressure against his rim while he went back to slowly stroking his cock. He already knew the kind of crazy shit he could do on his own with just fingers and a cheap twelve dollar vibrator, imagining the feel of an actual cock, all hard flesh that gave just enough to still feel soft, especially at the head… that was gonna be some good shit, when they got there. God, and Lance had already proved he could be so patient when he was trying to take care of Keith, had had his tongue inside of him for ages, if Keith could teach him the right way to get at his prostate just imagine the insane things they could do together.

Biting his lip a little bit unconsciously, Keith pressed the tip of his middle finger inside, surprised at how easily it slid in all the way to the first joint without even trying. Oo, holy shit this was some pretty good lube, huh? That weird jelly-man merchant had certainly known his shit.

Fuck, just imagine the things he could do to Lance since this was the one sex thing Keith actually knew about. Or - he seemed to be okay at blowjobs, he hadn't expected watching porn would actually help on that one but Lance had come before Keith's jaw had completely worn out so he must have been doing it right.

The rest of his finger slid in just as easily, and Keith sighed a little at pleasure of filling himself up, enjoying the hot pulse of his own body around his finger. He didn't bother looking for his prostate, knowing it would probably just finish this off too fast. Instead Keith just started moving it, little curls of his finger as he slid it slowly in and out of himself with a shudder.

But he definitely knew what he could do to Lance's prostate, even if like, all of foreplay kind of eluded him. But aside from that detail Keith was gonna totally fucking mess Lance up, finger-fuck him til he wore out both his wrists and then once with his cock, make him scream so loud and so long he'd wear out his throat from it. And then get his turn and have Lance do the same to him. Just, make a whole day of it and fuck each other and take naps and never put on pants. Roll in bed and kiss for hours until they could get hard again, and not spend a single second of the entire day without somehow touching one another

He slowed the already languid pace of his hand til he was barely more than holding his cock, concentrating instead on pushing a second finger in next to the first. There was a bit of pain, but not in any kind of deterring way. Just the familiar pain of a stretched muscle, barely different from how he felt after a few hours on the training floor except in his ass instead of ankles, and the payoff was wonderful. He loved feeling stretched out deep inside like this, felt dirty and sexy and made him greedy to feel even fuller.

God, how he'd needed this. There was just the lightest hint of Lance's scent still lingering just at the back his jacket's collar, a slight tease that wasn't enough to properly soak in and it was driving Keith half insane, especially as the sweet smell of the oil started to overpower it entirely and just made Keith wish he were here right now even harder. Made him fuck himself harder too, slow explorative touches speeding up to become rougher as he let his mind wander.

Mm, you know what Keith really wanted to do sometime? Fuck in one of their Lions. In Blue, he decided; that way the next time they flew for battle Lance wouldn't be able to help but remember the last time he'd been in that seat, with Keith on his lap and riding his cock.

Keith smirked to himself a little, which just turned into biting his lip again when he decided he wanted a third finger. But before they fucked, he thought to himself with a loud shuddering inhale at the burn of his ring finger forcing its way inside of himself in an oily glide. Before that Keith wanted to take Blue out to fly. A nice long ride, and Keith would act all normal and datey so Lance would never suspect that Keith was gonna spend the whole ride back sucking his cock. And whenever Keith's jaw got tired or Lance started to get too close to coming or started flying unsteadily Keith would stop sucking and stroking his dick but he wouldn't pull back. Keith would keep Lance's cock in his mouth the entire time, see how deep he could get it into is throat and just hold it there, just hold him deep and still in his throat like his mouth was there just to keep Lance's dick warm. Fuck, that was hot; trying to imagine what Lance would think of that. Imagining the way he was gonna look down and see Keith's head relentless in his lap, imagine him wondering what Keith was doing and trying to figure out if he was just trying to tease Lance and keep him hard or really was so thirsty for dick he couldn't stand to have it out of his mouth while his jaw recovered. Wondered if Lance would think Keith was slutty for it, and fuuuck, why did he kind of hope he did?

Keith was definitely panting pretty hard now, and he'd just noticed that at some point he'd taken his right hand off of his cock entirely in favor of trying to cover his mouth with the back of his hand to keep the noises down. But he already knew these bedrooms were soundproof, so Keith let go a little and let a few low moans escape when he wrapped his hand around back around his cock.

And maybe it'd rile Lance up so badly that when they landed he'd yank Keith's head out of his lap, not even try to use his mouth to finish in favor of spinning Keith around and bending him over the dashboard. Just pull his pants down and take Keith right there, fuck him right on Blue's control console in the open hangar, pound his cock into Keith's ass as hard as fast as Keith's fingers were ramming into himself right now...

His right fist tightened around his throbbing cock and he knew this wasn't gonna last much longer, so when his fingers brushed against his prostate this time he went with it. Choked out a loud moan and rammed his fingers against it as fast and hard as he could, mind blurred out with fantasies of being fucked in his boyfriend's Lion getting vaguer and harder to hold on to by the second. Not that it mattered, not that he needed it to get there, not when Keith was shaking and fisting his dick and fucking sobbing in pleasure like he was right now, only seconds away from the edge and throbbing, both underneath his fingers and around them.

The last flashes of thoughts before his orgasm were barely even coherent anymore. Fantasies and memories jumbled together, thinking of fucking Lance and being fucked by him and mouths and hands and thighs all covered in sweat and he thought of Lance's legs and he thought about his voice and he remembered that last first kiss from just a few hours ago…

Keith came hard, so hard that some of it hit his chin in an embarrassing mess.

He came down slowly, sighing a little as he shook against his bedsheets and buried his face into the hood of Lance's coat. Ohhh, he was relaxed now. And he needed to get up, didn't he? Keith had to wash his hands, and the sooner he got this jacket in his laundry the better.

He did not get up. Keith fell asleep, instead. Curled on his side at the top of his bed like a stray cat, half naked, completely filthy from fruit oil and bodily fluids, and with more peace of mind than he'd had in weeks and weeks.

Yeah, he was a disgusting dirty hobo of a person like Lance said, but… maybe, he could believe that one of the things he wasn't was too crazy to ever be happy.


	10. Happy For Most Of Ever After

It was another two days before the Queen finally contacted them. It was mid-afternoon and Keith hadn't been on the bridge, so by the time he got there he'd missed the beginning of her and Allura's conversation. Whatever it was it didn't seem to have gone well, because Keith could already see the line of tension in Allura's shoulders as she glared at the holographic screen where Queen Shirun's 10x magnified face scowled right back down at her.

"I'm just saying we don't need you," Shirun's deep voice sounded thinner over the connection, but it didn't detract from the power of her intimidation. "We've been doing this for ten thousand years and we have a system and we have plans."

"And I'm saying we could help you," Allura was gritting out in return. "I don't know if you're aware, but Voltron is a weapon so powerful Zarkon is directing almost all of his attention on preventing us from using it on him! If we just strategize I'm sure we could coordinate -"

"Strategize what, a plan to use you as bait to distract one man while all the rest of the Galra in the universe keep doing their jobs? I don't care what kind of super weapon you have, it's still just one sword, and one you don't even know how to wield at that. Maybe if the real paladins had been around to keep swinging that sword for ten thousand years straight it might have made a difference, but that's not the reality. While you had the luxury of napping through the last ten millennia the rest of us have all been fighting, and as far as I'm concerned you've caused me nothing but trouble."

Allura's face glowed with the kind of rage Keith had only seen her point at Zarkon himself, fists shaking at her sides. "It was hardly a nap, and if you were doing so well on your own then why are there more Galra than there have ever been?! Voltron can take out entire Galra battleships in a single stroke of its sword and you think of us as nothing more than a useless toy to be stepped over?"

"And if you're so gorram good at it, why did you just waste an entire month trying to contact the R.A. to join us? You don't have any plans or any clue what's been going on around you in the rest of the universe, and blindly swinging around that weapon of yours is going to get someone killed. I don't care what the rest of UAGRA wants or has to do with you. I don't want you coming anywhere near Elpis again, do you understand me? After your little escapade, the Galra are watching me so hard I won't even be able to leave my own palace for the next decafeeb, and by then I'll be dead and my shitty daughter will be in charge anyway! I don't care how badly Zarkon wants that thing, I don't see any conceivable way you could possibly use it to rid the entire universe of Galra unless you can be in about a million places at once!"

"Don't you think I already know how helpless I am?!"

Allura's shout seemed to surprise everyone, including herself. And as she recollected herself, suddenly something Keith hadn't seen before was obvious - she and Shirun were exactly the same. Born into the middle of a hopeless war they have no chance of winning, but carrying too much responsibility to have any choice but to fight. To keep fighting a useless endless war they knew they couldn't really do anything about, but have to keep trying anyway. Because it's the only way there will ever be any hope. "Look," she began again, more calmly. "I am very aware of our limitations, and that is why I came to join a greater union. I do not know about what the universe is anymore under Galra control for so long, but I cannot simply lay down and go into hiding like my father wished of us. That is why I wished to get into contact with UAGRA - to learn what it is I can do to help, so that we know where this one sword can be pointed to actually do some good."

Shirun stared at contemplatively for a moment, begrudging respect on her face. "It doesn't matter anyway," she shrugged after a few long seconds of heavy silence. "Like I said, the Galra have all eyes on me for right now, so my hands are tied. I'm not the person you'll be in contact with to get information from now on anyway, I'm just calling to give you their contact information personally since when I transfer you over to them it'll be a one-way line. UAGRA has everything they need to get in touch with you, and there are three other heads besides me you can eventually talk to if anyone comes up with an idea."

Allura blinked in surprised, shoulders losing their tension. "Yes, but… We really can't be expected to leave Concordia in its current state, can we? We made things more difficult for you, and the Galra infestation…"

Shirun cut her off with a tired roll of her eyes. "Kill Zarkon and we'll talk, but for now just leave my own people to me. Anyway, the reason it took so long to get in contact is because we could only just now get a hold of our agent, which was vital since he has more information on the Galra than pretty much anyone outside of our actual Galran defectors. He's the number one person you'll be in contact with to coordinate attacks, since he's the only one with enough understanding of their routes and tactics."

"If he's so hard to contact, will we be able to get a hold of him when we need to?"

"Not my problem," Shirun dismissed. "All I know is that I'm handing you off to the deep cover mole we have working for the Galra, so he's usually with them." She nodded towards Allura. "Til we meet again, Your Highness."

"Until then, Your Majesty," Allura curtseyed back respectively, but Keith hardly saw or heard it, something in the queen's word setting off a trigger in his brain. Usually with the Galra, huh. Wait… it couldn't be… He was just being paranoid, right? There was no way this deep cover agent who planted the flag in the Galran prison system could possibly be…

Keith didn't notice his own scowl in favor of his brain going into overdrive, reeling too fast in too many directions with memories flashing through his mind like disjointed puzzle pieces in a whirlwind. A flashing sharp-toothed grin, a red shell cracking. Yellow-green gas diffusing in swirls, and a startled voice yelling at him to watch out and there way just no fucking way -

The screen in front of them flashed off and on again, Queen Shirun gone and replaced with a travesty that had Keith's hand fisting reflexively around his knife. "Hello~" Veret Everett greeted with a cheerful shark-toothed smile and a wiggle of his fingers, and before he knew he was going to do it Keith's arm was moving and he was throwing his unsheathed knife at the screen like it could penetrate time and space to stab Veret in the face instead of clanging uselessly off the bridge window behind the holo-projection that it had instead sailed harmlessly through.

Granted at this same moment Shiro could be heard muttering, "Oh what the sweet fuck," Keith would later upon reflection be embarrassed that it was instead his action that had gained the attention of the entire room.

But as for right now he was far too taken with his rage to even consider that, pointing at the grey-faced figure on the screen and shouting, "This motherfucker STABBED me!"

"You tried to stab me first! " Veret defended back hotly, one thin silver eye twitching. "Some bitch comes flying out of nowhere and tries to put a knife in me of course I'm gonna fight back, I'm not gonna let some little psycho slit my throat because he MIGHT be of use to the R.A.!" His voice was raised higher than Keith had ever heard it, but instead of making him sound any kind of intimidating Veret just sounded like a teenager spazzing out.

"Oh, and I was supposed to NOT try and kill you?!"

"You were SUPPOSED to stay in the fracking boiler room, you useless twunt! Do you even have any idea what you've put me through?! All the work I go to, ALL the things I do for you, and the only thing you had to do was stay in the gorram boiler room! You were in a closet instead of a real prison cell, the RA were on their way to get you, and I even fucking left you your weapons in the NEXT ROOM OVER! I could not have made this ANY EASIER for you, if you would have just held! Fugging! Still! But no, instead you break out, try to kill me, and let's not forget set off a BOMB in an underground base! I'm still disappointed both of you didn't DIE!"

"I'm still disappointed I didn't get to kill you myself! " Keith hissed back. "We were attacked by Galra, drugged, and woke up chained to a pole, who the fuck would NOT try to escape that?! At what point, motherfucker, at WHAT POINT was I supposed to figure out that I wasn't about to be culled by the Galra at any moment?"

"The point where you woke up alive and uninjured because I saved your dumb boyfriend from being SHOT IN THE FACE! Which, YOU'RE WELCOME for the drugs then, huh?! HUH?!"

"Oh, yeah, thank you for the KNIFE in my shoulder! Thank you so much for the laser bullet that went straight through my torso!"

"Hey, I tried to STOP you from getting shot, you ungrateful little -" Veret cut himself off with snarl that he muted into a snort, squeezing his eyes closed and rubbing at his forehead for a moment until his two left eyes stopped violently twitching. He released his breath slowly, swiping his hand off of his forehead like he was brushing away the anger with the gesture, and when he opened his eyes he was once again smiling and declaring with forced cheer that he managed to work into outright smugness, "You know what? It doesn't matter. Obviously, you're just too low-class to be able to appreciate my kindness. I have been nothing but helpful to you, barring a brief loss of temper, and I will continue to be nothing but helpful, because I am just that generous and heroic of a person."

"HEROIC?!" Keith did not screech because Lance was wrong and Keith's voice did not and could not go that high, "GENEROUS?!"

Shiro sighed somewhere off to Keith's left, and he glanced over in time to see him pinching the bridge of his nose. "Alright, we're not gonna get anywhere like this." He looked up towards Hunk, who must have arrived in the room sometime while Keith was distracted. "Hunk, do you mind?"

"Sure, I got this," Hunk agreed easily, approaching Keith with a firm hand landing on his shoulder and gently turning Keith around to push him towards the door. "Come on buddy, let's go find something for you to punch."

"Hoho!" Veret grinned cockily. "Yes, do send him off for a nap while we adults take care of business~"

Unwilling to let Veret have the last word but equally unwilling to let Veret see him be physically picked up and carried off by Hunk which would in fact happen if he resisted right now, Keith could tossed out behind him a fierce, "Don't think this is over! I'll see you again and I WILL kill you!"

"Looking forward to it!"

Hunk pushed at his back more forcefully, steering Keith out of the room before he could do his own reputation anymore damage.

Keith let himself be led into the hallway, seething now in silence as his mind reeled. Fuck fuck fucking mother FUCK, this could not be reality, this could not be his life . How as the universe so unfair as to make every single step, every single action Keith took on Elpis the EXACT wrong thing? Drugged and stabbed and shot and exploded by someone who was supposed to be on the same side as him, what kind of sick fucking joke was fate playing on him here?! Like everything hadn't already been futile enough, and now it was even his own fault he and Lance had even been in any danger at ALL?! No. No way, this couldn't be real, Veret could NOT be part of the RA, it was too fucking much! He couldn't take this. His head was gonna spin off his body and fly across the room to splatter his brains across the wall, that's how fast his mind was reeling.

"Oh, thank god," Hunk was heard mumbling behind him, before he brightening his voice to shout out a cheerful greeting of, "Hey, Lance! You should come here and take your boyfriend off my hands before he stabs something!"

"I can't stab anything," Keith fumed, "I threw my knife across the room. "

"Oh, you're resourceful I'm sure you'd find something, " Hunk assured him with a jovial pat on the back before he turned to bail. "I leave this to you Lance, good luck! We believe in you!"

"Why are you saying that like you're sending me off to my death?" was the concerned mumble that could be heard from Lance before he turned bemused eyes to Keith. "Uh, you okay sweetie?"

"Don't call me that," Keith snapped insincerely. "I'm a gay man, not a god damned six-year-old girl."

Lance held up his hands defensively. "Sorry, uh, no disrespect meant here, good sir. Just trying to figure out what's got your panties all bunched up."

Fuck. Nope. Not doing this, Keith was not going to tell Lance about how much of a fucking useless idiot he was and who may or may not be a traitor because then he'd have to apologize for getting Lance's legs blown up unnecessarily by breaking them out when they were already going to be rescued, and you know what Keith was NOT prepared to deal with right now? All of that. Any of this. Nope. Fuck it. "Nothing! Ask someone else! Shut the fuck up! I'm going to the training deck!"

One thin eyebrow raised, Lance stepped out of Keith's way to follow behind him as he stormed off down the hallway again. Not looking particularly offended by Keith's outburst, he just easily responded, "Sure sure, I'll join you," like Keith telling him to shut up and fuck off was not concerning to him in the least bit.

It wasn't his casualness that gave Keith pause, though. Well, it was, but not his apparent dismissal of Keith's anger as non-problematic. No, what stopped him was the easy way Lance announced that he'd join Keith in the training deck, like going back into combat after what happened was just that natural, even when the group training for the entire week had been very intentionally teamwork oriented and Lance had, as of so far… not picked up a weapon since he'd killed six men.

Keith turned around slowly, mind finally finding focus again enough to repeat dumbly, "Uh. Join me? Are you… gonna be alright going back into battle again?"

"Sure sure," Lance dismissed with nonchalance that was visibly forced. "Not like I can avoid it if the Galra attack anyway, right? Might as well get back into the swing of things; see if my mad reflexes have improved any since the last time we faced off the old Gladiator together."

Well, Keith was hardly going to be the person to discourage this, even worried as he was. It would be fine; Lance had been blown up practically their first day in space and had never shown any fear in battle despite it, how much more of a difference could it make to have… you know. Felt a man die under your hands? Keith did not know, because there was something legitimately miswired in his brain, whereas Lance was fairly normal. You know, in a purely psychological sense.

"Well," he supposed, "better now versus a robot than later on versus real men, right?"

Lance let a hint of his dubiousness peek out through the cracks of his smile. "Heh, no kidding."

In the end, it was true that Lance could handle it. Keith set the training program one level lower than he normally did, but that was less about underestimating Lance than it was because Keith didn't want a legitimate challenge right now as much as something he could beat the shit out of, and together… well, they'd always had pretty good teamwork, to be honest. Their fighting styles really were compatible with each other, and Keith was keeping Lance and where he was in mind a lot more successfully than he was usually prone to do. He was still working on the whole 'having back-up' idea, okay? Even if Lance's hands shook just the tiniest bit when they stepped in there in the end, they did better than when they'd tried to two-on-one the Gladiator a month ago, and Keith was allowed to be proud of both of them.

It did make him wonder what he'd missed though, and just how many hours Lance had spent crouched alone on the training deck or random rooftops practicing his aim. Well… they were back to trying to spend all of their time together instead of avoiding each other. From then on, Keith would be around to know this shit. For now, he could at least try and take a slow whack at this whole 'Lance has self-esteem issues Keith has not been helping with' situation, and his only idea so far was 'increase the sincere compliments?'

"You really are getting to be amazing at this," Keith panted as they stretched out one more time as a post-workout cool down. "I wasn't afraid I was gonna be shot in the back like, the entire time."

Lance laughed, hard enough that combined with his body's exhaustion he had to double over and prop himself up by planting his hands on his own knees to keep from falling over. "You are just never gonna figure out how not to be awkward, are you?" Which, what had Keith even said? "Thank god you're cute."

Keith shifted from one foot to the other, and now he was the one who was self-conscious. "I - it was- I was just trying to… You're a really good shot?"

Lance laughed again, patting Keith on the back with one hard slap. "Adorable," he repeated decisively. "I love how hard you try." Well what was he supposed to be doing, not trying? Ugh. Lance was so weird.

"Anyway, thanks, I needed this too," Lance's smile seemed sincere, if tired. "I'll admit I was a little nervous about that nasty case of the shakes I came down with for a minute. I didn't really want my first time back against the Gladiator to be with everyone else around to see me panicking." He shrugged. "But actually, as long as we only face drones instead of real life soldiers for a while, it turns out I should be fine." Lance assured Keith, looking him in the eye with something that seemed just a little bit like pleading. "I don't want anyone worrying about whether or not I can take the shot when it counts, I'm not… scarred for life or anything."

That was, they both knew, a lie. Well, not the flaking out at a critical moment thing, that Keith had faith wasn't gonna happen. But there was no way in hell what happened in those sewers wasn't going to leave behind some emotional baggage for both of them. But that was just… Something they would have to get used to. Something they'd need to adapt to. This was war, and nightmares were the new normal for every one of them.

That said, Keith could see why Lance wanted to play this off.

"I know," Keith promised, instead of reminding him that neither one of them would ever actually be okay again. "I have faith in you, remember?"

Lance sputtered and flushed red, covering his face with his hand and crying "D-dude, you gotta stop saying shit like that!"

It was Keith's turn to laugh.

"And that's pretty much where we left off," Shiro finished in his strongest Captain Voice. "Allura and I agreed there was no point in trying to make a decision about this with just the two of us. So as it stands, we can give Veret access into our network to send us all the information he gets on the Galra as he acquires it, but only if we actually agree to working together. The R.A. is basically a complete unknown to us, and trying to cooperate with them could honestly result in us being sold out to Zarkon very easily. All things told, it's a matter of whether or not we decide to trust Veret for now, because he's our only way in to talk with anyone from UAGRA. But he's also, you know, " he paused. "Not someone I'd be inclined to hand my wallet to, much less trust with our lives."

There was a general murmur of dissatisfaction among the other paladins. Hunk was the first to offer an opinion.

"So… that's it? We just did a month of work to get in contact with someone and now that we have we're just… talking about it?"

Pidge's raised eyebrow was sharp, "What, you just trust that guy that easily? If he can send us information, no matter how secure our system is, there's still a way for the other side to get in and steal information from us, even outright tamper with the castle itself! If he can plant a flag in the Galra computer system when that has an unpassable DNA lock that's supposed to keep out anyone who isn't their damned species, he can definitely put an invisible tracker on us. Could tell anyone where we are and what we're doing at any time!"

"Well, yeah," Hunk conceded, "but how bad could that be? Zarkon obviously already knows where we are all the time anyway, and we never even figured out why."

"How fun does a repeat of the possessed castle adventure sound to you? It could be bad."

"Could be!" Hunk shrugged. "Everything in life is made of 'could be's, man."

Allura cut in with a tone that left no room for argument. "What might go wrong isn't even the issue at hand," she said. "The fact is, this can all be boiled down to one simple question. We have exactly one person whom we can contact to enlist UAGRA's help on anything, so how likely is it that that one line in will use our cooperation against us? If we reject this offer, there is no other resistance we can turn to for support. We would have to continue building allies one planet at a time."

The room was tense and uncomfortable, and Shiro sighed before anyone else could offer a complaint.

"Well, if the question is whether or not to trust Veret, this isn't that hard." He turned, to Keith's surprise, straight to him. "Keith. You've spent more time with him than any one of us; if anyone's in a place to judge his character it's you."

"Uh," Keith was startled enough to take a step backwards. "Wait, seriously? Um, you did hear what I shouted as I was dragged from the room, right? Are you really sure I'm the right person to ask here?"

To his astonishment, the entire room looked like they generally agreed with Shiro on this one, even though no one should ever trust Keith's opinion on anything, much less people he's actively vowed to kill. But Shiro just shrugged a bit, offering, "Yeah, but you've calmed down now. Whether or not you still hate him isn't a factor; I trust your judgement Keith. If you say it's not worth the risk we'll walk away."

He frantically looked around the room, waiting for someone to say that was ridiculous. Instead Coran was twirling his moustache and cheerfully agreeing.

"No better way to see a man's true face than on the battlefield, eh? You said you fought him, and surely that must have given you a fair stock of who he really is."

Oh, jesus christ, they were actually all leaving this on Keith. That was… fuck, he couldn't just make a snap decision based on his instincts on this, he had to actually consider the situation seriously, no matter how much it made his brain hurt to even think about Veret Everett.

Keith had been there to hear Queen Shirun and Allura's conversation. If there was any way for them to ever set foot on Elpis again, it would be through the RA and the RA only. Which meant that if they turned this down because Veret was too big of a risk… they'd never be able to do anything for the Geruda. That thought alone made it worth the gamble, in Keith's opinion. Hunk was right about the Galra finding them all the time anyway and Keith would tear entire solar systems apart in the name of getting the Galra out of Concordia. Still, it wasn't just Keith's life at stake here…

Okay, let's think about this from the beginning. The first time they met, Veret made a direct effort to annoy every single one of them. Without any evidence that they were connected to Voltron at the time, Keith could safely assume this was just how he acted with everyone he met. Veret went out of his way to be repulsive, which… was actually kind of perfect for a double agent, wasn't it? Since it was hardly possible to make himself completely free of suspicion without just being a full-blooded Galra, the natural impulse was obvious. Make himself SO suspicious, so clearly self-serving and two-faced, that everyone assumed they knew what he was thinking - that he was only out for himself. Keith had certainly fallen for it, hadn't he? Who the hell would suspect that this douchebag was working to help the revolution, of all things?

What else did Keith know? The obvious - warning Keith that he was about to be shot was an impulse Veret hadn't planned, which meant he genuinely didn't mean for Keith to die. Or… that could have been part of his plan, too. All of this could be. They'd only had two paladins captured before, but if they let Keith and Lance escape and lead Veret right to the castle and inside their computer system to wreak whatever havoc he pleased, like Pidge said, then they were already falling into the trap even as they spoke.

No… Keith's paranoia said that made sense, but there was something off about it. That video call just now was the most genuine emotion Keith had seen out of Veret so far and it had been anger. Not even at being attacked, but for Keith leaving the boiler room in the first place and screwing up his plan…

There. That was the key. Okay, he was onto something now - what else did Keith know here?

The two fights they had, one where Veret was annoyed he had to fight at all and the other pissed off at Keith for appearing out of nowhere with a comb knife and fucking everything up. The same conclusion could be taken: his plans weren't going a hundred percent the way he wanted. Then there was singling Keith out as being the easiest to read on the first day and getting him alone to pry him for information over dinner… Except no. Keith had been able to read Veret that day before either one of them had even spoken: that wasn't an interrogation. It was a game.

Keith didn't know if he was angry or disappointed, but with that he knew he'd nailed it.

"It's probably true that he has no desire to help the Galra," he offered slowly, "but that's not the same as being trustworthy. That guy definitely thinks of this whole war as a game. He's not out to help anyone or make himself a profit or anything easy like that, he…" Keith's eyes narrowed, but he looked straight at Shiro, more certain with every word he spoke. "He's playing a game to prove how clever he is. That guy's just in this to feel superior and laugh at being able to trick everyone around him."

No one looked particularly pleased by his assessment, but it was Lance who groaned loudly and rolled his eyes so hard his shoulders slumped and entire head tipped backwards to stare at the ceiling like he was beseeching the gods for strength.

"UGGGHHHH! Great, so now we have to keep dealing with this guy for like, months and years?! I was so excited at the idea of never seeing him again, you have no idea!"

Fortunately, Keith was not the only one who seemed to be confused by Lance's leap in logic. He felt like they hadn't actually come to a conclusion yet, how did we get there…?

"Uh, Lance," it was Hunk who voiced the question. "I feel like him thinking this is all a game makes him… you know, not good to trust? You can give up on a game halfway, no one dies for a game they're playing. He could just decide he's playing for the Galra after all the second things get dicey, right?"

"Well," Pidge came in with a hesitant point. "I don't know about that. I mean, I know when I play a video game I always set the difficulty to Hard, right? Trying to overthrow a ten thousand year old empire sounds like Chaos Mode to me, and no real gamer would just suddenly quit because it didn't look like they could win. You either turn that loss around or make sure you go out with all the assholes on the other team cursing your name."

"Exactly," Lance drawled, annoyed. "Keith said it himself - that guy's out to prove how smart he is. People like that are all the same - proud to the point of narcissism. Anyone smug enough to join the losing side of a war just to show off how brilliant he is is definitely proud enough to die to prove he's outsmarted a planetfull of Galra. Probably has a whole bunch of proof saved of all the things he's ever done to fuck someone over just for someone to find and see how great he is. "

That seemed like a really valid assessment, actually. Huh… Lance had taken like, no time at all to figure out Veret once Keith had said that, had he? Was he really that much better at reading people than Keith? Or… Hm…

Shiro was speaking again, his we're-done-talking voice in full effect.

"Well, that sounds like it settled it. We'll open up the line so Veret can send us all the information on the Galra he's acquired, unless someone still objects."

...Or was it because he was also that same proud type of person…

"Even if he does betray us, we might as least use him to get into contact with someone more important in UAGRA before that point." Allura of course, was more decisive on accident than any of them ever were on purpose. "Pidge, do as he asks. I want to know everything about the Galra Everett knows before we make our next move."

Keith was once again distracted, more disjointed pieces falling into place. The… same type of person? No way. There were a few similarities on the surface, but that wasn't the same as being the same type of person as Veret. That was almost offensive to even suggest, wasn't it? Veret was shallow and manipulative, probably thought of himself as some tragic hero fighting against oppression when he was really just bored and an asshole. Lance was obviously completely different on every level.

Except... If that was true, what the hell was still bothering Keith so much? What was it about Veret that reminded Keith of Lance except it made Keith hate him instead of being attracted… It wasn't just that overachieving pride and overt flirtiness, there was something else, something like, like being two sides of the same coin or something, like the annoying person Lance pretend to be when he first met anyone Veret actually WAS, all the time, deep down in his ugly little black heart.

Like… No, Keith knew what it was. They really WERE the same type of person, but also not at all. It was as if there was someone who could have turned out to be Lance, except you took out all of the love and warmth and kindness he had ever experienced in his entire life to leave only that insecure need to prove himself to the universe. Two people cut from the same print of fabric only for one of them to turn out into someone amazing and complex and caring and the other into… a douchebag fucksquid.

Keith did not like the feeling that settled over him at that realization. Even with that settled, didn't the fact that he was dating someone that similar to Veret still mean…

"Lance!" Keith called, realizing that everyone had finished the conversation while he was freaking out a little bit there and nearly all of them had already left the room. "Lance, say something sweet," he demanded.

Lance turned around to raise a quizzical eyebrow at Keith, fumbling, "Uh, sweet?" He paused, considering and obviously still confused. "Uh, Pidge's birthday is in a couple weeks and me and Hunk are trying to figure out how to make a cake for her, is that - or wait that's kind of literal, you probably didn't mean food sweet, huh?"

Yup. Still a genuinely good person, no reason to feel like he was dating Veret at all whatsoever. Keith felt his shoulders drop in relief. "No," he assured Lance. "That's good, I got what I needed."

Lance looked even more puzzled. "Uh… glad to help?"

It had been long enough that the greenhouse was really taking off, and Hunk had enlisted Keith to help. Keith had tried to protest under the argument that he couldn't even keep a cactus alive, but Hunk had assured him that these were alien plants and, to be honest, Hunk didn't know anything about gardening either. And hell, as long as he wasn't the only person flailing around uselessly that was good enough for Keith. Can't screw up what no one is getting right in the first place, after all.

"I already labeled all of these, you just gotta plant the seeds and then put the right tags in the dirt next the row you just planted." Hunk explained, with an absent sweep of his hand towards the open soil. "I'm gonna look at what's already started growing and pretty much randomly guess at their health. Tell me if you see anything..." he narrowed his eyes. "You know. Weird."

"Roger that," Keith agreed, deciding it was best not to worry about how likely this 'weird' was. Hunk had made his job easy for him - all the seeds he'd been buying or collecting in Concordia he had sealed into individual little jars, the labels for each he was supposed to just stick straight into the ground considering that they were written on little sheets of stiff plastic rattling around with the seeds, instead of paper or just writing straight on the jars.

Honestly, the planting part had never been the problem anyway. Plants wanted to grow, getting them to start wasn't hard. It was just keeping them alive after that that was the tricky part, as far as Keith was concerned. But just sticking seeds in the ground was kind of relaxing. Didn't even really have to think about what he was doing.

Keith's mind wandered in the same general direction it always did lately, not that he noticed. He zoned out, thinking about Lance, because things were finally back to normal between them and Keith was back at that stupid stage where just thinking about his boyfriend gave him butterflies in his stomach because Keith was lame and Lance's smile was made of distilled pop music and pure sunshine. He was also thinking about what Shiro had said the other day. Did he really believe that the two of them getting together had been inevitable? It didn't really make sense. The two of them could barely stand each other when they first got to space, and they'd only started dating by accident. What would have even happened if Lance hadn't phrased it like that when he asked Keith to hang out with him? How long would it have taken Keith to figure out how kind and warm and patient he could be if he hadn't gotten curious and started actively seeking out Lance's good points?

He wondered… did Shiro not even mean them getting close was inevitable, just that they'd end up having sex? Because Keith had to admit they did seem to be um… quite compatible in that regard, but that didn't mean anything would have ever happened from a little mutual attraction. It definitely didn't mean either one of them would ever develop any real feelings for the other, much less the weirdly intense relationship they'd ended up falling into.

Inevitability… Keith didn't know about that. He couldn't even understand why Lance wanted to date him right now in this reality, much less one where Keith didn't let him touch his butt all the time. Why the hell did Lance like him, anyway? Not that Keith doubted Lance's very vocal affections, but… Seriously. Why, though? He was such a fucking trainwreck.

Lance praised him for being a badass paladin and for always working so hard, but one of those things everyone else was catching up on and the other could easily translate to 'workaholic with no time for fun' if Lance wasn't in a good mood. He talked like he wanted to take care of Keith and thought all of his social awkwardness was adorable, but that seemed to Keith like the sort of thing the novelty could wear off of soon, and then what would be left? They barely even had anything in common and the only reason it was so easy to spend this much time together was because the war wasn't going well enough for everyone to be busy all the time, so what about when that changed? Would they even find the time or a reason to spend time with each other? The closest thing they had to a hobby in common was their habit of challenging each other to stupid dares to get overly competitive about, and as much fun as it was, it didn't seem like the sort of thing a relationship could be sustained on.

God, he was already doing it again. Keith just couldn't let himself be happy for five minutes without finding ten thousand reasons it could blow up in his face, could he? If his relationship was actually going well of course he had to make up future problems to worry about instead. Stupid paranoid anxiety, he was going to need to get better at fighting off his own negativity. Just telling himself to stop being so pessimistic was obviously not enough to make his brain stop doing dumb things, and much as he tried not to he really was worried about the future. Before he realized he was going to do it, Keith was opening his mouth to speak to Hunk, whom he of course knew to be his boyfriend's best friend and therefore the person to stupidly ask:

"Hey, uh… Does Lance like. Ever talk about me?"

Hunk craned his head around to look at Keith slowly, eyebrows shot all the way up to his hairline and jaw open like he could not believe that question had just come out of Keith's mouth. As Keith was about to ask what the fuck the problem was, Hunk burst out in peals of laughter so raucous he barely breathed through it, doubled over and clutching at his shaking belly.

"Does he -" he wheezed out between laughs, "Does Lance ever talk about you?!" Hunk bellowed, eyes watering as he descended into another fit of laughter.

"That's, uh… probably a yes then," Keith decided as he watched his friend roll on the ground.

"That," Hunk chuckled, finally sitting upright again as his laughter subsided. "Is more like, there has never been a point in my and Lance's entire friendship when he has NOT talked about you, dude."

Keith flushed. "That… Okay I know for a fact you two have been friends longer than you've known me, so."

"Oh, you think I am exaggerating, but I am not, sir." Hunk assured him, serious even through his humor. "Me and Lance met in the Garrison, remember? And guess who he also met year one?"

Keith was vaguely aware that he and Lance had been classmates, but his general impression of the other boy had pretty much been 'moron who expects life to go his way just because he's good looking,' which was uh… obviously not favorable enough to have learned his name for.

"We didn't really meet though, I don't think? I mean both of us were there, but that's not the same as like, interacting."

Hunk's laugh this time reminded Keith of Santa Claus. "Yeah, that did not stop him from talking about you. At any point. Ever. Seriously."

"...I dropped out after like, a year and a half."

"Yeah," Hunk agreed. "And a year after that Lance was looking at our class grades and spoke the words, 'Hasta la later, Keith,' which I remember because I spent a full half a minute trying to figure out what that meant."

Huh. Well, Lance uh… did seem to have that weird inferiority complex he'd projected onto Keith, but he had really thought that that had happened when they'd gotten to space…

"Lance has always talked about you, and I can tell you alllll about alllll the things he's said the entire time." Hunk reiterated, amusement turning into recalled exasperation. "First it was all, 'Damn did you see that Keith guy in the simulator today? That was amazing!' which went to 'Oh my god what a jerk how are his grades always at the top of the class but he never speaks to anyone like he's better than all of us or something who does he think he is,' except then when you got kicked out then he switched to 'I can't believe that idiot Iverson expelled someone with that much talent,' which went back down to 'Why are they still comparing my grades to Keith when he's been gone for six months?'"

Keith winced at that. "Eugh. The teachers didn't really do that, did they?"

Hunk's shoulders lifted in a 'don't know what to tell you' sort of gesture. "It did work to motivate him, to be fair." Well that was gross, but it at least explained why Lance hadn't just forgotten about him outright like Keith had for him. "Buuut it does not explain why he was able to correctly identify the back of your head from 600 yards away when you blew your way into the Garrison Hospital to rescue Shiro. That's really on on Lance, right there."

Keith blinked. "Wait, he what now? Is THAT why you guys showed up out of nowhere? Because I gotta be honest, it barely even made sense for me to be there with no proof Shiro had really come back; you guys breaking in too kind of confused the shit out of me."

"Because Lance ran off after you is why, mainly," Hunk confirmed. "ANYWAY, yeah, so that was a thing, the whole school-driven 'I'll be better than he ever was' stage went all the way up until that point where we hit 'let's follow someone who's pretty much a stranger into a government facility because I'm crazy' thing that got us all here in the first place, at which point he immediately went to 'Oh my god, I can't believe I'm stuck in space with goddamned Keith of all people,' which is… like, you followed him, dude. And then once again he did not stop, and started back up with the 'I swear to god he's not better than me' stuff."

Hunk paused, but only to take in a deep preparatory breath of air. "And then this is where things get fun, because here we get 'Shiro says I have to stop fighting with Keith so much since we're stuck as a team like this,' and 'how am I supposed to get along with someone with absolutely no personality whatsoever,'" Okay, that one stung a little. "Which went on to turn around into 'You know I'm starting to think he's less douchey than he is awkward,' which is the point where he starts to, you know, do a complete 180 to go on to a whooollle mess of 'So I was hanging out with Keith today and he said the funniest thing,' and 'That reminds me of something me and Keith did,' which naturally devolved into 'Have you ever noticed how huge his eyes are,' and 'I made Keith laugh again today and it was the best sound I ever heard.'"

Keith was sure he was blushing now. "Uhm… Oh," he offered intelligently. Must have been around the time they started dating, from the sound of it.

Hunk did not appear fazed in the least bit, even sort of rolling his eyes. "Oh, yes. And you can see how that turned into all the 'Oh my god Keith is the cutest thing I've ever seen,' and 'He's so amazing at everything I can't believe he lets me make out with his face,' which barring a couple of brief interludes of 'Oh god I'm dumb he'll never forgive me's pretty much brings us to where we are today," Hunk finished unenthusiastically. "So yes, Keith, Lance talks about you. It's more a question of if you wanna know what he said two years ago or two hours ago, because there has been... a LOT in between."

Geez, when Hunk put it all together like that it kind of sounded like Lance was... obsessed with him or something. That… should probably make him feel more creeped out than warm and gooey inside, but. You know, Keith was a freak and all.

"Two hours," was what he said instead. "What did he have to say two hours ago, then?"

Hunk blinked at Keith like he had only just remembered he was actually talking to a real person and not complaining into the void. Then he snorted a laugh that turned into an easy smile, shaking his head.

"You two are just as useless as each other," he mused with obvious entertainment. "Well today's rant was all about how he's worried because he can tell you're still mad from talking to Veret because your nose hasn't stopped twitching all day, to quote, 'like Bugs Bunny on a cocaine burn out.'"

"W-what?" Keith reeled back a bit, "What about my nose?"

"It twitches when you're mad, bro," Hunk said apologetically, one eyebrow raised in a manner that easily communicated 'I'm not gonna acknowledge it out loud but you need to know you're adorable.' "When he said it I thought he meant your nostrils flared, but then I watched for it and you do like, a full on Bewitched wiggle. I've never seen anything like it."

Keith felt his nose move, and became instantly self-conscious enough to want to slap a hand over his face to cover it. God damn it, how long had that been a thing?! "Great. Awesome, thanks." he said stiffly.

"Just telling it like it is, my friend," Hunk said, easy like a hammock strung up on the beach. "Hope whatever nonsense you were worried about has been cleared up now."

"Pretty much," Keith promised. "Sounds like we're both half-insane, so me and Lance will, uh… probably be fine." Either way this conversation certainly made that 'inevitability' idea sound a lot more plausible.

"I fucking hope so, because I would really rather put up with the 'Keith is perfect and sexy' forever than 'Oh my god can you believe that bitch had the nerve not to look at me today' kind of stuff my life would devolve into if you guys broke up for real."

Keith paused to think about that one. ...Yup, sounded like the kind of thing that Lance would say after getting dumped. Mainly because not looking at Lance for three days straight was the kind of thing Keith was likely to do if he were dumped. "God, we'd be a disaster as exes, huh?"

"Yes," Hunk agreed wholeheartedly. "But you two are kind of disasters as people? So, it's really to be expected."

Keith couldn't have argued with that one if he'd wanted to, and they, uh… pretty much went back to gardening after that. Just as Keith was digging into a jar of seeds, only to notice they were labeled 'paopu,' Hunk was mumbling over his shoulder: "Now I swear these were green before…"

Keith glanced over at the plants Hunk was inspecting, spindly and pale. "Not enough sunlight," he assessed. "That's what my fern looked like before it died, you should transplant those to an area with more light."

Hunk turned around to look at Keith. Keith looked back at Hunk. And then, like they were playing hot potato and Keith had just lost, Hunk tossed the gardening spade to Keith and rocketed to his feet to declare, "You officially know more than me, you're in charge of the greenhouse now!"

"W-what?!" Keith panicked, juggling the tool in his own hands like it would burn him if he held it too long. "How did that happen?! I just said I killed everything I ever owned!"

"Which means you know what not to do!" Hunk said like it was the answer to the universe. "And besides, between trying to reverse engineer the Lions and figure out how to make food out of the kitchen, I've got a lot of shit to do, where you kind of wander in circles all day like a bored housecat. It makes perfect sense!"

Keith realized with horror that he had absolutely no argument to counter that. "But- I don't… I'm not doing this by myself, damn it!"

"And I'll still help out! Sometimes!" Hunk assured, still obviously retreating.

God damn it, did Keith just get ditched with the entirety of greenhouse responsibilities?! How the f- he was out of Texas, he was supposed to be done farming forever! He looked around at the greenhouse, a little helplessly. Well, it was just gardening, right? Keith could totally deal with plants.

Fine. So he was head gardener now. As long as he never had to milk a damned cow again.

It was late into the night, and Keith couldn't sleep. Not because anything was wrong, in fact it was probably the opposite. When he was in a good place was naturally the perfect time for his brain to throw a nightmare about being lost in the cold endless void of empty space a him. You know, shake things up and make sure he wasn't going soft. Thanks, brain. You don't suck at all.

So, whatever. Keith got out of bed, wrapped himself in something warm for the cold sweat he'd woken up in, and wandered off out of his room to clear his mind. He'd ended up under one of the castle's windows, which were less actual windows than just projections of whatever was going on directly outside of eight feet of Altean metal wall. The effect was the same either way; it was about atmosphere more than anything anyway.

Keith thought he had probably sat under this particular window before, and it wasn't until after he'd already planted himself on a thick windowsill-like ledge that he had mind to wonder if that might be the same window he and Lance had first kissed under. If it wasn't this one, there were only about three others it could have been instead, so it wasn't really hard to imagine it might be. Either way, whether he'd been here before or not, it was a relaxing enough place to plant himself with the baliset.

Yes, the baliset. As in the space banjo which they had not sold, but probably because no one had known it was even FOR sale, what with Keith constantly plucking at it in his boredom during every one of his shifts manning the shop. He had grown rather fond of the ridiculous thing as a result. The reason it didn't get left behind when they all abandoned their shop in Concordia was because it had already been in Keith's closet at the time instead, because it was his now. Keith owned and played the space banjo. That's how ridiculous his life was.

Ignoring the fact that Keith's ridiculous cowboy lifestyle was and remained entirely his own fault, he was still feeling pretty relaxed. He'd been teaching himself one of the few songs he knew the words to and had pretty much figured out the chords and rhythm, enough so that figuring out what note he needed to play next and how was second nature, instead of anything he needed to think about. Not that he was actually any good or didn't miss notes or even that the baliset version sounded a whole lot like the original accompaniment, but. Not like he was trying to entertain an audience anyway, he just liked having something to do with his hands when he had to sit still.

"...Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land and boil the sea; you can't take the sky from me… "

"Oh, COME on!" A voice startled Keith so thoroughly that he suddenly found himself brandishing the banjo like a baseball bat out of instinct, an absurd twang echoing loudly through the small room when his fingers slapped the strings against the banjo's neck with his grip. When his head whipped around, it was of course only Lance, leaning casually against the doorframe and looking like he'd been there for a while. "You figured out that stupid banjo and now you can even sing, too? That just isn't even fair anymore, how are you always good at everything?"

Keith instantly relaxed, lowering the baliset out of attack stance and setting it to the side because he was now too embarrassed to still be holding it. "I'm... really not. I think you're just biased in my favor because of the liking me thing. I promise in real life you're uh… way better at singing than me."

Lance's eyebrows rose like he hadn't expected that, wandering into the room properly to stand nearer to where Keith was still sitting. "Me? I don't even know why you'd think that, I mostly sing to annoy people."

Keith could only chuckle at that, raising a pointed eyebrow at Lance with an earnest, "Lance, you sang to me for about twenty seconds before I decided I needed to suck your dick."

His face flushed red before his jaw had even dropped open, and Lance looked away to awkwardly scratch at his chin with an embarrassed, "Uhhh, that is… certainly another way to look at those events, I guess!"

Keith just laughed again, and Lance finally joined him sitting, both of them with their backs to the long window.

"So," Lance started up conversationally after a long enough time had passed. "Is that coat just yours now, or is there still hope I might get it back someday?" He asked, reaching out the few inches between them to tug at the long green sleeve of his own jacket around Keith's wrist.

Oops, Keith had totally forgotten about that. "You can have it back," he said instead of in any way indicating he was embarrassed to be caught like this. "I just had to wash it and figured I'd tease you by making sure it smelled like me before I returned it." This was not true. Keith had not thought that far ahead, but he would rather turn the flirting back on Lance than come anywhere near admitting he was wearing it to comfort himself.

"Oh come on," Lance laughed. "That's just being mean, I already think about you too much as it is!"

"Well, good, that's obviously the idea," Keith grinned, and Lance laughed and bumped his shoulder against Keith's to playfully jostle him to the side.

After they'd both stopped grinning but before they quite had time to fall into another silence, Keith asked, "So, what are you doing out of bed this late, anyway? You have a nightmare, too?"

Lance's smile didn't even pretend not to be exhausted.

"Heh, yeah I guess I'm not hard to read, huh." He sighed towards the ceiling, admitting with a rueful twist to the corner of his mouth, "This time the war dreams and the homesickness dreams combined, and so I got to murder my whole family! That's fun, I might never sleep again or whatever, that's cool."

Keith sat upright to look at Lance. "Jesus, that's way worse than mine. Are you okay?"

Lance shrugged, one long lift of his shoulders before he let them drop like lead weights. "It's fine, I'll barely remember it by tomorrow anyway. I just need to keep my mind off it so the details don't stick in my brain." He looked over at Keith. "What was yours?"

"Oh," Keith dismissed, leaning back against the window again. "Just the normal one, where I'm free-floating alone in the endless void of space until I starve to death."

"Well that's terrible," Lance responded. "That's a new idea I hadn't thought to have nightmares about yet."

"Really?" Keith asked, a touch of surprise in his voice. "I have it all the time. Space is terrifying. You're just like… alone, no matter where you go."

"I'm never alone in my nightmares," Lance admitted. "It's not a real nightmare if I don't watch at least one person I love die in front me, after all." Keith finally thought to scoot over until they were pressed shoulder to shoulder, sharing warmth. Lance's voice was soft, and a little bit broken as he continued, "I'm just… never good enough to save anyone, not even in my own imagination."

Keith heart seized in his chest, hating that Lance could think so lowly of himself. "More like only in your imagination," he turned his hand until it was resting on top of Lance's. "You're much more reliable than you give yourself credit for, Lance. Like, you do know you're amazing, right? I mean, legitimately extraordinary as a person."

The look on Lance's face was less dubious than practically accusing Keith outright of being patronizing. "I think I'm legitimately the least extraordinary out of all of us, but someone has to pilot Blue."

"Jesus Christ, shut the fuck up!" Oh god damn it, how was this even worse than Keith thought it was? God Lance, how are you and your self-esteem so stupid? "Do you seriously not realize how amazing you are? I mean, I knew the boasting was to cover up insecurities but I didn't think it was ALL show! You're supposed to know you belong with all the rest of us forming Voltron at the very least, you're not... You're not average, and you're not replaceable."

Lance looked taken aback, and Keith realized he maybe might have started this out with something other than 'shut the fuck up.' Well… maybe if he kept talking he could fix this. Keith was competent and could bring peace of mind to his boyfriend. He hoped.

"Lance… okay to start out with, you know that Blue was in that cave for literally ten thousand years? Do you have any idea how many people must have touched that cave wall before you did? I was in that stupid place like, a hundred times and I'm also a paladin of Voltron, but nothing happened until YOU were there! Ten thousand years, Lance!"

"Uh…" Lance looked uncomfortable. "I guess that's a good point, but. I dunno, me being bros with Blue hasn't stopped me from sucking yet."

Useless son of a- How was his brain even like this?! Keith was mad AT Lance on behalf of Lance, and therefore had nothing to lash out at except to try to convey… not even his feelings, actually. Reality. Keith was trying to convey reality to Lance.

He took in a deep breath because Keith was the type of person to yell when he was passionate about something and now was not a good time to shout compliments into Lance's face. So, in a calm but firm tone, Keith began. "Lance… the very first thing you did when you got INTO Blue was save the Earth from a Galra battlecruiser, before we even got out into space or knew what the hell a Galra battlecruiser WAS! You can claim it was Blue, but I know better than anyone these Lions may be wily enough to move on their own from time to time, but they do not aim their own weapons in a fight. You got into an alien weapon and, before anyone knew what was going on, saved our entire home planet from being taken over by Galra. By yourself. Just you. I was there to see it and everything."

Lance's face was a new shade of red not previously known to mankind before. "Well…. Hunk and the rest of you guys all did nearly the same thing…"

"Yeah right, like Hunk would have even had enough confidence to be let into his own Lion if he hadn't seen you do it all first," Keith argued back immediately. "And even if we set aside all of that, put aside every single thing you've ever done in your Lion with the excuse that it was somehow Blue's fault you're completely fearless and quick-thinking in the heat of battle," he pushed on in case Lance had any more excuses. "Then I can still prove you're amazing because we were three days into space and had gone on one barely-successful mission before you pushed Coran, a virtual stranger, out of the way of an EXPLOSION. Because you keep exploding. It's a thing you do. Very irritating."

"A-anyone would have -"

"Anyone else would have only thought to shout 'Look out,' Lance! Not throw their body in front of a bomb, and not wake up out of a coma in the middle of battle and immediately think, 'Oh, I better shoot that guy,'" Keith said, voice heavy with exasperation. "I have literally no idea why you don't understand how incredible you are. THAT'S what annoys everyone when you do something stupid. Not because we expect it, but because we all know you're better than your own moronic mistakes."

He seemed to have, for the first time in history, rendered Lance completely speechless. Keith was kind of proud of himself for that, especially when Lance went on to stutter, "You… seriously mean all this, don't you…"

"Yeah, Lance." Keith finally offered him a little smile. "You didn't really think I had bad enough taste to want to date anyone I didn't at least consider my equal, did you?"

Red faced and now studiously looking anywhere but Keith's eyes, Lance chuckled, "Heh, and here I thought you liked me 'cause I can make you laugh."

"I like you 'cause you're sweet and supportive and make me laugh, yeah," Keith agreed, intentionally pressing his body closer to Lance's. "But I wanna fuck you 'cause you're a total badass."

The sound Lance made was not unlike a distressed teakettle, and when Keith noticed they were pressed close enough to hear Lance's heartbeat speeding up, he didn't try to fight the laugh. Lance ended up joining him after only a moment, and while Keith wasn't sure which one of them actually wound their fingers together to hold hands, the moment was pretty close to perfect either way.

"You know…" Keith started up casually a long minute after they'd calmed down. "I was talking to Hunk earlier today."

Lance was leaning his weight against Keith's shoulder and Keith was doing pretty much the same, keeping each other upright. "Oh yeah?"

"Mm-hmm," Keith confirmed with a hum. "And sometime before he ran off and ditched me with all greenhouse management responsibilities ever for the rest of time…"

Lance snorted. "Yeah, that sounds like a thing he'd do."

Keith ignored that with a smile and a tiny laugh. "...We were talking, and when you came up he sort of implied you might be… obsessed with me. A little bit."

"UHHhhhhMMM. Obsession is a bit strong of a word," Lance defended. "Maybe uh, enamoured, or infatuated…"

"...For the last two years straight."

Lance's gaze didn't waver from the ceiling. " Interested. Interested is a good uh… way to put it."

Keith laughed again, fingers curling tighter around Lance's. In a lower voice that he hoped was sweet, or at least a little flirtatious, he continued, "And when I thought about it, the idea actually made me pretty happy."

Lance's eyebrows twitched in a passing furrow of confusion, and he finally turned to look at Keith with the baffled question, "You WANT me to be obsessed with you?"

Keith directed at Lance his most radiant smile. "Yeah," he confirmed, then couldn't help but drop his own eyes to the floor for a second to admit, "It made me feel less ridiculous for having you on my mind like… Every single waking moment? It feels like?"

"Ha?" Lance's voice was thin and strained, but eventually turned into a laugh at the end. "Does that mean it's okay to admit that 'obsession' was actually a pretty good way to put it?" It was a self-deprecating sort of tone he was using, but oddly still warm and the eyes on Keith were affectionate. "Like, sometimes I have a thought that makes even me step back and go 'Okay Lance that was really creepy that is not how healthy relationships work,' but I also like, can't stop it? You make me feel things I've never felt before with anyone else, and uh… you know, not all of them are always... good. I'm kind of a little crazy."

"Oh, yeah?" Keith prompted. "You can't just leave it like that man, what kind of creepy thoughts? Murder me while we're having sex creepy?"

Lance's head whipped around so fast Keith actually heard the crack in his neck. "What?! God, no! What the hell, Keith?!"

"Well there you go, if it's not worse than that I bet I can handle it," Keith assured him with a teasing grin of his own. "See, you're already less crazy than you thought you were."

"And every time I think I know how crazy you are you outdo yourself." Lance looked a bit like he was appealing the Lord for strength again. "Nope, nothing murderous I promise, just… SUPER possessive and jealous. Like, unreasonably so. And I don't even just mean of how close you and Shiro are, like, you can be talking to ANY of our friends and I'm like, 'Bitch I'm supposed to be the only one who can see you smile like that; how dare Pidge say something funny,'" He explained.

"It started off as just wanting to make you happy, but then it kind of blows up sometimes and I like… wanna monopolize you, and be the only thing that makes you happy. I want to be the first person you think of when you're sad and need cheering up, the first person you talk to when you're excited about good news, and the first and last thing you think about every day when you're in bed. It makes me feel like one of those controlling, asshole boyfriends who needs to know what you're doing every second of the day even though I swear to god I WANNA give you space. I might not actually be capable of giving people space. I'm very clingy by nature. Just being in the same room as you turns up every one of my emotions by like, tenfold, which was true even before I knew I wanted you to smile at me." He made a muted explosion-y sort of gesture by curling in and then spreading out his fingers, most likely trying to convey his sanity with the move.

Keith could relate to the gesture, in the sort of the way that he felt like his insides were exploding right now. But in a good way. Like, exploding into glitter or something. Which was also probably kind of messed up? Why did he WANT Lance to be insane because of him? Keith was such a trainwreck.

For the first time, it felt like Lance was really his, that was why. Knowing that Lance liked him and thought he was beautiful was different from knowing Lance was a little bit obsessed with him, and the knowledge that Lance had had Keith on his mind for years before they'd even started dating made him feel like… like he could actually keep Lance. Like if they tried hard enough, they wouldn't have to break up at any point ever . Keith… hadn't actually had that kind of faith in the two of them before this. Keith also had no idea how to convey his feelings using words, unfortunately, and was feeling too many things at once to be able to know where to even start articulating them.

"I get jealous of Hunk."

Lance blinked. "...Seriously?"

Keith nodded rapidly. "He... he knows you better than I do. He's known you for longer, can tell what you're thinking when I can't, and you two hang out together like every day. You're so comfortable around each other you just randomly use his body as furniture and I never even know what to SAY to you. Sometimes I'll see you two laughing together and I'll get this urge to like… the only way I can put it is 'I wanna steal that man from him,' which doesn't even make sense? Because I'm the boyfriend and he's the best friend and that idea only actually works if it's like, the other way around? I don't know. I just…"

He shrugged, but when the action was finished Keith's shoulders remained hunched in on themselves. "You can actually relate to people and make friends easily. I feel like I'm in a whole different world than you just watching. I just feel sometimes…I dunno. Like I'm some ghost no one can even see, much less relate to." He bit his lip, able to feel how red his face was and unwilling to meet Lance's eye for his last words. "You make me… I pine for you. We can be in a room with our own friends all having fun and I'll still want to sneak off and be alone with you, even when I don't even have anything to say. I just… want all your attention on me. I guess."

There was a long silence where Keith could hear his own heartbeat but generally refused to look at Lance yet. He heard as slowly, Lance began to laugh, rich and true and beautiful as he reported to Keith, "And you've had that the whole damned time, anyway!"

Keith didn't really need to look over to join Lance in the laugh, quietly embarrassed but also completely and unfightably happy. "So, if we're both too jealous and possessive, does that even out or totally screw us over?"

"As long as we keep the crazy things we think inside and don't try to control each other it probably evens out? I hope?" Lance sounded almost comically uncertain, and they shared one last giggle before falling into a comfortable quiet.

Keith would never understand how everything could always be so easy when he was with Lance, from laughing to crying to getting angry to getting horny. He knew what Lance meant by that feeling everything tenfold comment, but Keith found he wasn't really scared of that idea anymore. The frustration may multiply but so did everything good, too, and Keith… well, Keith kind of wanted to feel this warm and comfortable all the time. Wanted to keep feeling this crazy about Lance, no matter how dumb it made them both act when things went wrong.

Aaaannnnd Keith really didn't wanna go back to his empty room and lie down in his bed again, because there he'd be alone and free for whatever cold nightmare he could dream up to come slither into his head. Keith was tired of being alone. He was tired of being alone and the only thing he'd really wanted for ages was to spend time with Lance doing nothing, and at this point Keith was done staring at his cake because he was pretty sure he could have a bite without the whole damned thing disappearing.

"Come spend the night in my room," Keith invited, only realizing how sudden it was at Lance's surprised face. "I - uh, not as a proposition or anything," Keith backpedaled when he heard his own wording. "I just… if we both had nightmares there's no good reason for us to try and sleep alone, is all."

Lance's smile was the kind that could make entire planets move and Keith's heart stop in his chest. "Well I mean, it's not like I was gonna turn you down if that was what you meant…"

Keith laughed again, and this time it was his turn to knock his shoulder against Lance's in a reprimanding little shove. "You're the worst," Keith smiled, voice heavy with affection.

"Always have been," Lance assured him, smiling handsomely like some asshole who didn't know what that warm expression did to twist up Keith's insides. And then, with a final-sounding sigh, he picked up Keith's left hand and looked him in the eye. "Come on, Kitten." Lance stood up, taking Keith with him by the hand. "Let's go to bed."

Keith noticed how much warmer his room felt just from having the lights on after a nightmare, but also figured it could just be having a second person in there with him that had changed the atmosphere so much. Lance had been in Keith's room a hundred times before and showed it, strolling in to casually throw himself onto Keith's bed before Keith himself had even stepped inside. He, of course, then proceeded to make himself so comfortable that Lance was sprawled out over the entirety of the bed spread-eagle like a beached starfish and loudly sighing.

"AAHhhhh, perfect! So, I'll take the bed, and uh, should I throw you a pillow or will you be fine just right there on the floor? Maybe make yourself a little laundry nest, could be nice."

A laugh bubbled its way out of Keith's throat before he could even think to scold Lance. "Yeah, we'll see how that goes, jackass," his voice was obviously thick with affection, even as his smirk was filled with mischief. Keith did not so much lay down as throw his body onto Lance's with all of his weight, a strangled "HOOF!" of Lance's breath punched out of him when Keith landed on his chest.

"Oh look," Keith grinned down at Lance, who was wiggling to try and dislodge Keith's elbow from his side. "I think I found a pretty good place to sleep right here. This should make a good pillow, as long as it stops squirming so much."

"Why are you so heavy?" Lance's laugh was breathless, and Keith pinned down his wiggling by sliding one of his knees to press down between Lance's legs to settle against his crotch.

"Because I'm trying to be," Keith admitted, still intentionally pressing his weight down to try and bother Lance as much as possible with his presence.

It was his thigh against Lance's junk that elicited the squeak out of him, and suddenly, before Keith even knew quite what was happening, he found himself lifted in the air, one of Lance's long legs pushing up against his stomach to kick him off the bed.

Lance shot up to look when Keith hit the floor, a panicked, "Oh my god, you weren't supposed to fall off the bed entirely! Are you okay?!"

Keith blinked at the ceiling for a moment, dazed. And then he too, sat up, looking at Lance with a bewildered "Did you just lift my entire body weight with one leg?

Lance sort of shrugged back. "Legs are stronger than arms anyway? I mean, I can hold my body weight up with one leg just by hopping, and like, I do that all the time."

Well that's not how logic really worked, if one leg couldn't support your weight how would you even walk? Oh wait. Or was that Lance's point? Keith didn't typically give enough thought to human legs to really know what to think here, but he was still kind of impressed either way.

"Here, come up here and I'll show you," Lance said with a beckoning wiggle of his hand, lying down on his back on the bed again with one of his legs bent towards his chest to raise his foot in the air. "Gimme your hand."

Having no idea what Lance was thinking, Keith figured he'd roll with this. Lance took both of his hands, left in right, so that they were still facing each other while he directed Keith, "Uhhhh this will probably work easiest if I have you crawl over me again."

Oh boy, or maybe Keith did know what Lance was thinking, he just didn't particularly understand why Lance was planting one bare foot steady on Keith's stomach as he hovered over him. As he'd feared, when Lance extended his leg Keith went up with it, instinctively curling his legs up behind him to keep his weight centered as Lance lifted him into the air with one foot, their linked hands an anchor for Keith to push against to help hold himself upright.

Lance grinned from below him, "See? Not even hard."

Actually now that Keith was actually in the air, something about this did seem kind of normal about it, and he recalled with a hint of surprise, "Oh yeah, I think I've seen people do this in movies, huh?"

"Yeah probably," Lance agreed, bringing up his other leg to hold Keith up with a steadier hold using both feet lower near Keith's waist. "Buuut to be honest I've only ever done this when I was playing airplane with my little nephew, I'm a little impressed this still works with someone over three feet tall."

Keith just laughed, this being far from the first children's game Lance had pulled him into and he hardly expected it to be the last.

"Okay, now tip forward," Lance said next. "I wanna see if we can kiss like this, Spider-Man style."

Keith's brow furrowed. "Isn't that supposed to be upside-down though? This is just sort of… midair."

"Shut up and get your mouth down here."

With a last snort of laughter Keith complied, leaning down to press his lips to Lance's before he overbalanced and broke off to fall onto the bed. They were both laughing though, half breathless from it and rolling on Keith's bedsheets like children.

They were lying on the bed facing each other, and Lance had reached around to wind his fingers into Keith's hair and pull him in for a kiss before they'd even completely stopped giggling. Keith was not ashamed to admit he melted into it, drank up the affection and relaxed into the bed, finally at ease after such a long, long day.

Their kiss was deep but languid, Lance gently sucking on his tongue and occasionally nipping Keith's bottom lip as Keith tried to remember to breathe through his nose so as not to sigh directly into Lance's mouth. They kissed for what felt like ages, gradually shifting towards each other until their bodies were nearly pressed against one another while Lance's hand played with the hair at the nape of Keith's neck, one of the many sensitive places on his touch-starved body. The playful mood had wound down enough that Lance's touch had gone from feeling soft to electric, every movement of his long fingers scratching against Keith's scalp sending fresh shivers down his spine.

Oh… maybe he was getting a little too comfortable, actually. Keith was starting to get more excited than sleepy already just from finally having Lance so close to him, and he really had meant for them to just be going to bed. Reluctantly, he broke their kiss, separating just enough to mumble, "We should probably go to sleep."

Lance let him break off of his lips but didn't allow Keith to go far, immediately kissing from the corner of his mouth to his cheek to his ear, a low "Mm, probably," rumbling out before he gently bit at the lobe of Keith's ear.

Keith either hissed or gasped, he wasn't quite sure, but he knew he felt his back arch out just the tiniest bit towards Lance, who was soon rising up to lean over Keith's body for better access to his left ear and exposed neck. They were still both lying down but Lance had shifted enough to not be lying on his own arm anymore, second hand now free to plant on Keith's hip where his thumb could flirt with the thin line of skin between Keith's shirt and decreasingly comfortable pants. Keith wasn't totally cognizant of rolling onto his back but he ended up there anyway, one hand planting on the back of Lance's neck while he let his other wander up and down the expanse of Lance's shoulders and back.

Too nice… Lance's lips were softly sucking a hickey below Keith's ear, a place so weak Keith had to bite his own lip to bar any noise more embarrassing than a deep hum from escaping. Keith's knees were weak, his spine was jelly, he thought his hands might be trembling already as well, and if he let this go on for much longer he knew he was going to get hard. The blood already rushed all over his body and had definitely reached to stain his face in a blush by then. He really needed to get a handle on this before it found its southerly destination or he might end up having to try and fall asleep with his boyfriend in his bed and a hard-on at the same time.

"So, uh, the way I see it," Keith started, pausing to sigh at Lance's fingers dipping below the line of his pants to toy with Keith's hip bone. "There are two things we could do right now…"

Lance didn't look up, but made an interested noise against Keith's neck. "Hm?"

Keith shivered. "Well, we could… kiss for a few more minutes and then go to sleep..."

"That sounds boring," Lance assessed in a breathy husk in between running his tongue to dip into Keith's collarbone while he slid his knee in between Keith's thighs.

Keith swallowed, heart pounding and not quite able to believe he was about to suggest this. "Or… you could let me up long enough to get to my closet, where I have a jar of oil I know is safe to use as... " If he chose not to finish this sentence would Lance see where he was going with this? Eh, better to be direct. "...As lube?"

Lance froze above him, even his breath halted against Keith's neck."OhhhOOHh," Lance squeaked, audibly gulping, and Keith watched as Lance's face turned red before his eyes. "There are uh… a lot of things we could do with… some of that."

"Mm-hm," Keith agreed in a hum, glad Lance wasn't even trying to look him in the eye right now. "And there's one thing in particular we could use it for that I might be… you know. Eager to try out."

Lance shuddered and squeaked again, adorably nervous. "Oh yeah… that one thing we have not done yet. That we would need lube for. You… do you really wanna… tonight?"

Keith's face burned even hotter. "I'm the one who brought it up!" A pause, eyes swerving up to lock with Lance's again. "Did… do you want to? Are you uh… ready? To - to do that with me?"

"To fuck you? Oh God, yeah," Lance blurted out, causing them to both immediately turn their heads away from each other to break eye contact while their faces mutually combusted. "I - mean uh… shit. I mean I'd love to make you come any way you'd let me! ...Wait that's kind of -"

Keith was already laughing, because this whole thing was ridiculous. He pushed Lance off of him enough to sit up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed because he was pretty sure it was safe to go grab the oil now. But just as he was standing up Lance's hands were suddenly on him, hooking in Keith's pants and underwear both and causing Keith to stumble as he tried to stay up and his shorts tried to stay down. When he hopped out of them both to hit the floor both he and Lance were laughing again, Lance pulling Keith's underwear free from the pants they'd been tangled in and raising them up like a trophy with a victorious "WHOOP!"

Feeling a bit silly in just his tee shirt and Lance's jacket with his dick hanging out, Keith started by stripping down so he was at least completely naked, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Lance's eyes stayed trained on him as he undressed.

Then, before he went over to fetch what they needed from the closet, whipped over to Lance so fast he had no time to react when Keith grabbed his own pajama pants by the ankles and yanked the fabric, tugging Lance's pants off and bowling his surprised boyfriend onto his back to be dragged halfway off the bed all in one fell swoop.

"HA!" Keith raising the garment like a banner. "NOW who's got the pants, huh?"

They both paused and, simultaneously deciding what Keith had just said was hilarious, both of them started laughing again. Keith was, at this point, beginning to think he'd never laughed so much in such a short time before, and fondly thought that that was just what happened when he spent time alone with Lance. Keith could forget about all the things in life that were frustrating and stupid and just… actually enjoy the moment he was living in. He was also pretty sure he'd never laughed while naked before in his life, so… that was a new and unexpected perk to being alone with Lance too, he supposed.

While Keith was opening the closet, he could hear Lance behind him taking off his own shirt, and as he fished out the jar Lance reacted over his shoulder. "Holy crow that's a big god damned jar! Where did you get an entire pickle jar full of lube?!"

Keith slid the container out, which was indeed the size of a pickle jar, but one of those smaller sliced sandwich pickle jars you can keep on any shelf of the fridge so. Lance was totally exaggerating. Also Keith hadn't actually known what size he was buying as much as he'd just slapped down cash and booked it as soon as the salesman handed him anything. "We were just in Concordia of all places for nearly a month, Lance. I don't know how you DIDN'T find any lube. There were two sex shops in the district we worked in alone."

He didn't so much pick up the jar as sort of slide it along the floor with his foot until it hit the bed frame, crawling back up to meet Lance again on the bed. Lance pulled Keith into his lap before Keith had even realized he didn't know what to do next.

Keith was completely naked but Lance was still in his boxers so that Keith's semi wasn't pressed right against his skin. Which was good, because now that Keith had plans for tonight, he'd need to avoid too much direct stimulation to his cock to get where he wanted. Somewhere into the new kiss, Lance had started to get hard himself. Keith could feel it from where he was sitting on the damned thing and his head was already reeling with way too many obscene ideas that he didn't even know where to begin. And Lance's hot kiss and gentle hands on Keith's bare skin were really not making it easy to think right now.

Shit, Keith was already way too turned on, maybe he was too sensitive to hold out for as long as he'd need to. Fuck, but he wanted this so bad, he didn't want to come a second before Lance's cock was inside of him, and if he got too wound up he'd never be able to hold on until he could wring out a prostate orgasm. He'd just straight-up come untouched the last time Lance had fingered him he'd been so excited, and if that happened again it'd be all over before the real fun even began…

Actually, wait. Would this plan even work at all? Lance hadn't exactly been hard to get off himself so far, would they both just finish the second they got Lance inside of him?

Lance was already hard underneath him now, basically just from a distracted kiss and having Keith naked in his lap. Keith found himself breaking off the kiss, cradling the back of Lance's head in one hand as he murmured the question, "So, uh, Lance…"

Lance chased the retreat by attaching his lips to Keith's neck. "Hm?"

Keith bit his lip, trying not to squirm girlishly at the gentle attentions. "How many times do you think you can come in one night?"

Lance froze. "Uhhh… How long of a night are we talking?"

"Well," Keith tried to rephrase the question. "I guess what I wanna know is, uh. If I blew you, you'd have enough time to get hard again while we finger me open?"

Lance detached himself enough for his jaw to drop open, strained whimper escaping from his throat. When he looked at Keith again his face was red, and his voice started off way too high pitched to be normal when he answered, "I have a feeling I could definitely pull that off, yeah."

"Oh good," Keith grinned, shimmying off his lap.

This way he'd get Lance's hands off of him long enough to cool down and recollect his head, you know, so it wasn't a waste of time making sure Lance would last in bed because Keith lost it too soon instead. He slid down on between Lance's legs, running his hands over the smooth and now largely hairless skin until he had Lance's hard calves under his palms. And oh, how Keith did love when he could turn the tables like this and have Lance the one shivering and staring wide-eyed at his touch, as helpless with confused arousal as he always made Keith.

He tore his gaze away from Lance's face to look back down at the long limbs under his hands, red splotches painting the outsides of both of his legs in uneven patterns that in some places scrawled all the way to his inner thighs. Keith pressed his lips to the closest patch of red, kissing one of the burns on Lance's knees with something like gentle reverence.

"H-hey," Lance's voice was shaking, and Keith glanced up to see a mixture of excitement and trepidation coloring his features. "You really don't uh… have to do that."

Keith moved up to kiss another burn higher on Lance's left leg. "Yeah, I do." He answered simply. Another kiss, closer to red marks on the insides of his thigh, and this one had Lance trembling just a little bit under his touch. "If I don't you'll probably get self-conscious and start thinking something ridiculous, like that the scars make you less sexy than before instead of more ."

"...I'm beginning to think you might have a high opinion of me," Lance practically whimpered, eyes wide and glued directly on Keith's.

Keith just smirked against his leg. "I was wondering when you'd catch on to that." He turned his lips to Lance's skin again.

He kissed his way further up Lance's leg, lips trailing all the way to his inner thighs while Keith made his slow way to Lance's groin. Lance reacted more and more to every touch, shaking and squeaking in a way Keith was starting to think he could really get used to… up until the point where Lance barked out a surprised, "Wa-HAHA!" accompanied by his knee jerking up to slam into Keith's chin.

Keith reeled back, clutching at his insulted face. "What the hell, Lance!"

"I'm sorry!" Lance scrambled forward, tilting Keith's jaw up to check for signs of a bruise. "It just really tickled, I didn't mean to kick you!"

"Twice!" Keith complained. "For the second time today! It's been like ten minutes!"

"It tickled!" Lance defended again, louder.

Keith glared at him. Then, decisively, lunged forward to attack, fanning his fingers into Lance's lower belly and wiggling them mercilessly.

"AhahaHAHA! You ba-HA-astard! HA AHAHAHA'll kill you!"

Just as Keith was starting to enjoy having Lance pinned under him and at his mercy… if not an entirely sexy way, Lance managed to waylay him back. A well-aimed poke to Keith's ribs had him jolting and flailing himself, giving Lance enough leeway to sit up and ensure a proper two-person tickle fight. Keith won, because Lance, as it turned out, was way more god damned ticklish than him; a fact he planned to store away for future use.

But for right then, Lance was loudly yelping the words "Uncle! Uncle, oh god, I give up!" and Keith was collapsing onto his chest to join him in a fit of infectious laughter. Lance's hands wrapped around his back while their giggles subsided, holding Keith's body close to his. Lance's voice was happy, words light with affection as he cursed Keith, "You're the fucking worst."

Keith levered himself up to look at Lance, not quite getting up enough to break Lance's loose hold around his back. "So, what do I win for getting you to say 'uncle'?"

Lance let go anyway, apparently for the purpose of flopping back onto the sheets dramatically with his arms curled above his head in the sheets declaring, "Why, I only have my body to offer you! Please kind sir, do be gentle with me!"

Keith hummed, making a great show of thinking about it. "Nah," he finally decided with a smirk. "That doesn't sound like as much fun as what I already have planned."

He watched as Lance's eyes flashed with interest at the remark, and then watched as they widened with shock and arousal as Keith reached between them to grab at Lance's half-hard cock through his underwear. "You probably wouldn't like gentle anyway," Keith promised as he slithered down Lance's torso, left hand still squeezing Lance's cock possessively through his descent.

He could feel it filling and hardening under his hand, and couldn't keep the satisfied smirk off his face even if he'd wanted to hide it. He was feeling too good right now, the perfect mixture of turned-on and playful and… whatever that weird gooey internal warmth Lance always gave him was, that feeling that sometimes felt like it could swell to take up his whole body. It wasn't like that right then, though, more like the gentle simmer of a campfire, the perfect almost-ignorable background noise for his excitement.

Keith kept on squeezing Lance's cock, not bothering with any kind of stroking until it was all the way hard under his hand, the soft flesh growing tangibly firmer under his palm second by second. He didn't need to see what he was doing though and kept his eyes trained on Lance's face the entire time. Only when he'd gotten Lance all the way hard did he break direct eye contact to slip Lance out of the fabric confines of his boxers.

Lance shivered and drew in a sharp breath, which he held as Keith's fingers wrapped around his stiff naked cock. Hm, it was still too dry to really stroke him off instead of just sort of playing with the loose skin, but at the same time Keith wasn't planning on giving Lance a handjob anyway so it would only matter for the next few seconds. That of course, being when Keith finally descended onto Lance's dick, slipping the round head of his cock into his mouth.

Ah right, the taste is actually kind of strong, isn't it? Keith… did not mind. It was a pretty sexy taste, if not specifically pleasant, the sort of taste and feeling that could really only be from going down on someone's dick. Only Lance's head was in his mouth so far but it felt like it was filling up the whole space anyway, and when he started to move his tongue to swirl around the soft tip of Lance's cock, his boyfriend let out the breath he'd been holding in a long shudder that made Keith's ego float.

But the goal this time was less playing around than straight-up getting Lance to come, so Keith didn't spare any time with teasing. He remembered from last time that the thing that had driven Lance craziest was when Keith had been bobbing his head, so he was already working more of the hardness into his mouth to take Lance in as deep as he could. Not all at once, just sucking a little bit more of Lance's cock in a bit at a time while tonguing the length of it, trying to figure out how to take in deep breaths through his nose when his body misguidedly tried to inform him there was too much dick in his throat.

"Fuckfuckfuck, Keith," was the only coherent response Lance had managed so far, already shaking with the effort of restraining himself from thrusting up into Keith's mouth.

One hand clenched into the sheets while the other landed almost accidentally on Keith's head, which Keith considered a pretty good opportunity to pull off and mutter, "It's fine if you pull my hair or whatever."

Lance whimpered, fingers winding through Keith's bangs to hold them out of his face, which he was actually grateful for since a few strands of hair kept trying to catch between his lips while he was fitting them around the base of Lance's cock. He couldn't really fit Lance's cock in his mouth far enough to hit the base at all, so while he was here Keith took the opportunity to mouth up and down the side of the shaft in short pulses of suction, licking at Lance's cock all the way down to his pubic hair.

Not as much fun, he decided, moving back to the head to slurp it into his mouth. Keith much preferred stuffing his mouth full of as much dick as he could hope to fit, both for the sensory satisfaction and because he could feel Lance's fingers tighten in his hair from how good it felt. It was technically uncomfortable in a you're-gagging-get-that-out-of-there kind of way, but Keith had more than enough experience ignoring his body telling him he was doing something stupid and had already started up on sucking on the hard flesh in his mouth, fingers of his left hand wrapping around what he inevitably couldn't fit in there.

He could, he discovered, continue the suction even while he started to move his head up and down, although it was a bit of a strain on his jaw to do so. It was worth it because the moment he started to bob his head Lance swore and twisted his fingers harshly in Keith's hair, the sharp tug against his scalp pulling a moan out of Keith. The moan of course reverberated straight through the cock in his mouth, and so for a second they pretty much both stopped to whimper pathetically.

Well, Keith supposed. If Lance felt good he might as well go with it, right? Keith continued moaning, not because he was particularly inclined to do so right now, but because he was trying to make Lance go insane and every little thing helped. He was starting to get a rhythm in sinking down on Lance's cock, just about figured out how to keep sucking and squirming his tongue while he ducked down. Not that he could keep it up for long, it was too hard to breathe through his nose when he was technically gagging and Keith had to pull back so that just the head was filling his mouth because potentially throwing up on someone's dick was super duper unsexy.

He gave his jaw a rest by tonguing at the vein just under the head of Lance's cock, using his left hand to stroke and squeeze at the rest of the spit-slicked shaft. He dipped the tip of his tongue into the slit on top, the dual reaction of Lance swearing and precome flavoring his tongue making Keith moan again for real.

He was just about prepared to start going down on Lance properly again, spurred on by the precome that told him he was already getting Lance close. Then Keith remembered there was lube literally two feet away from where they were sitting, and figured hey, there's a good chance that might help with the whole choking issue, huh?

He reluctantly detached himself from his boyfriend's dick, sitting up and wiping the excess spit from where it was spilling down his jaw. Lance whimpered again from the loss this time, and Keith just patted his thigh and crawled up closer to Lance's end of the bed to reach over him and dip his fingers into jar of oil on the floor next to him.

"Oh," Lance's voice was breathless and high with interest, watching as Keith stroked the oil deliberately over his cock. He was sort of sitting on Lance's side now instead of in front of him, and he wasn't sure what if any difference the new angle made but he was sure the lube sure changed this. The taste of the oil was too strong and not nearly as sexy as the taste of Lance's raw dick, but it made it so slick that his cock just glided over Keith's tongue and into his mouth like it was nothing.

"Oh sweet fuck," Lance swore as Keith sucked him back into his mouth, and oh yeah, Keith could already tell he was getting Lance deeper than he had been before just because now his lips were actually meeting the fingers he had wrapped around the base of his cock. Keith dove straight back into bobbing his head like before, coming as close as he could to smirking with a mouth full of dick when Lance's hand landed back on the top of his head with a throaty rumble of, "Oh god, Kitten, so good, that's so fuckin' good."

There was an odd sort of pride that came with the praise, even though Keith was never really the type who needed a lot of validation. This was something different, probably because being good at this benefitted Lance instead of himself? He wasn't sure but he knew he loved it, and when Lance's hand pressed down on his head to force Keith to stay down at his deepest for just a half a second longer the only way he could think to communicate 'you should keep doing that' was a squeeze to the base of his cock and a short whiny moan that wasn't one hundred percent intentional.

The motion of bobbing his head, it turned out, was made easier with oil as well. He wasn't gagging quite as much when he had the deepest part of his throat filled up now, and was probably able to move his head faster because of it. But better still was that Lance had apparently caught on to his cue, because he applied pressure to the top of Keith's head to help keep his head down a little longer than Keith could manage by himself, throat too resistant to having Lance's cock shoved in all the way down to the pubes, which was a feat Keith was now just barely pulling off.

Holy shit did he have Lance's entire dick in his mouth right now? He genuinely had not thought he'd be able to fit it all, but if Keith wasn't succeeding he was damn close to it, and okay, this was another one of those things that it was really hard to explain why he was proud of himself for. Other than, he supposed, that he wanted to be good at making Lance feel good, and judging from the way Lance was shaking at the hips and praising Keith like he didn't even know he was still talking, it was looking like Keith was indeed something of a skilled lover. Thank god, he couldn't have Lance showing him up all the time in bed or he'd never hear the end of it.

Keith actually kind of giggled around Lance's dick for a second, an odd snort of laughter through his nose. Haha, yeah right, like there was any point in lying in his own head. Even on the unlikely event Lance would make fun of him for this, Keith wouldn't care about the mocking nearly as much as he hated the idea of failing to give back every bit as much of the warmth and pleasure Lance was always giving him. Lance was incredibly generous with his affection and support, and had so far proved to be, you know uh… pretty generous in bed as well, and if Keith couldn't figure out the emotional stuff yet, the least he could do was show Lance how much he cared about him in a tangible, physical way. You know. Through orgasms.

Keith was snapped out of his train of thoughts when an unexpected hand began softly pawing at his ass, not having realized Lance was now able to reach him from where he was sitting… or, uh… crouched and sort of half-laying across Lance's lap? Either way there was a hand on his ass now, first just rubbing admiringly over the skin before Lance was bold enough to give him a little squeeze. Keith hummed in approval, shaking his hips a little bit in a manner he liked to think was encouraging, and stopped the jaw-straining bobbing of his head to take a deep breath and sink down as far onto Lance's cock as he could work himself.

When Keith's lips hit the very base of Lance's cock, Lance's hands both fisted, one in Keith's hair and one squeezing his ass. Keith definitely moaned that time, long and too loud and vibrating around the entirety of Lance's rather sizable dick. He stayed down there that time, concentrating his efforts on just sucking as hard as he could while Lance's hand wandered and teased it's way to Keith's asscrack to press his fingers into Keith's perineum.

Oooookay fuck that was good, that felt like, really really good. Ohhhh, Lance and his stupid fingers, Keith was way too weak to those hands, man. He let himself moan unabashedly, a sound Lance joined to meet with his own until they were both filling the room with pathetic noises of pleasure.

Lance was moving his fingers, prodding at the sensitive skin all around Keith's rim without directly making contact with the muscle itself. The tease was probably better than if he'd been touching Keith more directly anyway, and he found that the sounds he was making had devolved into something like muffled whining, only barely remembering to suck on the hard length in his mouth almost as an afterthought. But Lance was shaking all over now and barely restraining himself from thrusting up or pushing down on Keith's head with the hand still resting in his hair, and getting Lance to come had become less of a prelude for other things and more a personal mission at this point. Keith redoubled his efforts with the decision that his jaw had had quite enough of a rest at that point.

He'd just about gotten the hang of the deep breathing through his nose thing so that it was hardly much more effort to breathe with his throat all jammed up with dick like this. That said, Keith could devote himself to his task entirely, figuring out the right rhythm to bob his head and suck forceful pulses at the same time, an act which resulted in the lewdest, wettest, most full-porno sounds Keith had ever heard in his life. Holy shit he had thought those guys had been like, making extra slurpy noises on purpose to sound hot for the camera, but no that's just the real sound of a very enthusiastic blowjob. Go figure, porn was actually accurate about one single thing.

Lance's hand got distracted from Keith's rim to just squeeze himself a palmful of ass, doubling over a little to hunch above Keith as he desperately warned, "Keith, Kitten, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna come like, REALLY fuckin' soon, you gotta. You gotta…"

Keith hummed in understanding, because Lance was right in assuming Keith did not want to find out what happened when someone shot jizz directly down the back of your throat and was a little fearful it'd involve choking. Not really wanting come on his face or hands for the rest of the night either, he pulled back enough so that it was mostly only the head of Lance's cock left in his mouth, wrapping his hand around the rest to start jerking Lance off in fast, oil-smooth strokes. It only took a few long seconds of this before Lance was heaving out a telling breath of punched-out air and Keith's mouth was filled up with pulse after pulse of sticky warmth, swallowing it quickly because he figured it'd be easier than trying to figure out where to spit it out. Lance drained out with it, spine liquefying as he swore out more soft, nonsensical praise, the hand on Keith's head now petting his hair in a gesture Keith didn't assume to be intentional.

"Oh my god, how did you get even better at that what the fuck, man…" Lance rambled as Keith finally pulled off and sat up, wiping his face with the back of one hand.

"I'm very motivated," Keith grinned back with a little waggle of his eyebrows, trying to lick the last of the taste of jizz out of his mouth.

Lance's apparent answer was to swoop forward to gather Keith up in his arms in a hug, which seemed less for the purpose of hugging Keith and more so Lance could then dive into the sheets with Keith still in his hold to land him with his back to the mattress and a hundred eighty-odd pounds of boyfriend on top. The kiss, of course, was less surprising, even if it made Keith wonder if Lance was doing it on purpose because he wanted to taste himself in Keith's mouth. It was hard to care either way, because the kiss was slow and gentle so as not to aggravate Keith's sore jaw, and kissing Lance had only been like, one of Keith's favorite things for a good three months now.

He was still not disappointed when Lance broke off from his lips though, as they were quite generally a little abused right now. And it's not like Lance went anywhere far, just moved to kiss Keith's cheeks and forehead and jaw, skipping over his neck for once to plant one right in the dip of Keith's collarbone. Keith was content to let him do as he pleased, wiggling enough to reach the pillow above him and yank it under his neck to get comfortable, since he'd probably be here for a while yet.

A good long while, judging from the pace Lance was currently going. He'd barely moved on from kissing Keith's collarbone, still peppering languid kisses down his clavicle and licking at Keith's not particularly sensitive nipples. Upon Keith's lack of an interesting response, he moved on to continue south, kissing and mouthing his way down to Keith's navel and the soft stretch of belly underneath.

The attentions were unlike any sensation Keith previously knew. The kisses were so soft and scattered they were hardly that arousing, and yet Keith found himself damn near quivering at the touch of Lance's lips on his skin. It was so easy to focus on the light touches, not because the actual physical sensation was intense but because the feelings were. He could feel Lance's affection and adoration in every touch, and it was that that was eliciting the electric shivers of pleasure in the wake of every kiss.

He felt like Lance had already been kissing him for hours, so thorough was Lance in his attentions. Technically, the touches were only barely sexual in nature, but that certainly didn't wind up mattering to Keith. Probably because he'd already been ten kinds of hot and bothered to begin with, but the fire in his gut was only being flamed by the heat of every kiss, and when Lance's southern journey skipped right over his groin to nip and lick at Keith's thighs, Keith realized Lance really did intend to draw this out for god knew how long and he found himself whimpering.

"Lance," he pleaded, "come on, Lance I can't last all night, you've gotta start getting me ready."

Lance just hummed like Keith had said something of only mild interest, running his hands up and down the length of Keith's thigh admiringly. "Yeah, but we've got time before I'll be able to get hard again, anyway," he answered nonchalantly, sticking his face between Keith's legs and kissing at his hip. "You're the one who was so eager to suck my soul out through my dick, sweetie. Now that've already come once I have all kinds of patience to spare." Keith made another pathetic impatient, whimpering noise, and he could feel Lance's smile against his skin before he moved on to kiss the other hip. "Just relax for once and let me take care of you for a while."

Why did he keep saying things like that? If Keith really was uptight, how on earth was torturing him with an eternity of slowly covering Keith's skin in hickeys supposed to help him relax? He wasn't melting right now, he was exploding. Fire everywhere, disaster and ruin. Lance was such a dick.

Lance had joined his hands with his mouth to travel the length of Keith's legs, admiring, "How do you taste so good when your skin's not even soft?" Another kiss to Keith's calf. "You're so much hairier than I imagined you'd be and I don't even mind."

"Yeah, we're both dudes, Lance," Keith complained logically while his boyfriend sucked on his anklebone. "We're both only going to continue getting hairier from here."

"True." Lance finally paused, looking genuinely thoughtful for a second. "Unless I'm right about no more hair growing on all that burned skin, in which case I'm totally gonna start shaving my legs to even that shit out."

"No," Keith said instantly, deciding that if Lance was gonna stay down there then he was just gonna shimmy down to meet him. "Don't do that, the mess of scars and hair sounds like it'll be hot."

Lance laughed, accepting the foot Keith slung over his shoulder to drag him down for a kiss. "Well if you like body hair I'm sure I'll be able to provide; all the parts of me that aren't Cuban are Irish. When my dad wears a swimsuit he looks like Bigfoot took a daytrip to the beach."

It was Keith's turn to laugh, letting his leg slide down the outside of Lance's arm to settle closer down to his waist. Lance was grinning down at him adoringly, and in a voice dropped low like he was sharing a secret, told Keith, "Did I ever tell you you have a really sexy laugh?"

Quite reflexively, Keith laughed again. "Oh yeah?"

"Mm-hm," Lance confirmed. "You've got this deep husky voice, and when you laugh it's all low and raspy and it drives me crazy."

Keith glowed with the familiar Lance-induced warmth, another indulgent giggle bubbling out of his chest at the compliment. "Everything drives you crazy, Lance. Me drinking water with my hair in a ponytail makes you horny."

"You're super hot!" Lance defended. "You made it impossible NOT to stare at your throat, it's like, super erotic." He leaned down to bite another small nip into the very neck he was apparently so tortured by, and Keith's chest shook with a silent giggle as he pushed his boyfriend off of his throat.

"Vampire pervert," Keith grinned. "Don't you have anything more useful you can be doing with that mouth right about now?"

"Abso-god damned-loutely," Lance agreed, backpedaling down in Keith's loose leg hold to put his face level with Keith's crotch. "Many, many better things to do."

Keith shivered, watching with intent interest as Lance's lips slowly descended to kiss the head of his dick. The shudder that tore its way through Keith was… excessive, really, and he was slamming his hand into Lance's forehead to push him off with a fumbled, "W-wait, bad idea! You shouldn't touch that!"

Lance sat up to look at him in pure bafflement. "I shouldn't touch your dick? ...During sex?"

Ah, geeze, why did Keith always have to friggin embarrass himself like this? "I…" he tried to find the explanation he needed, words failing. "Well I mean, uh… If you start touching there, I won't want you to stop, you know? And if we finish me that way we won't be able to, uh… Do the other things we had planned."

It was Lance's turn to blush, lips curving into an understanding 'o.' "I can work with that," was what he eventually decided, and before Keith had time to think about it or possibly protest he was grabbing one of his thighs and shoving it up towards his chest, leaving Lance plenty of room to plant a kiss on Keith's perineum instead.

Keith bit a gasp into his lip, shivering with anticipation as Lance's mouth descended to lick a line from his sac down to Keith's asshole, already twitching in want. As he had presumed, Lance was devoting lavish attention to Keith's rim, licking and tonguing at the still-tense muscle for ages and ages until Keith's leg gave up its attempt to stay midair to land his foot on Lance's shoulder. He wasn't sure what the correlation was there on that being when Lance's tongue finally stopped sloppily licking at him and finally pushed inside, squirming past Keith's rim in a slimy wiggle.

Lance and Keith both made pleased noises at around the same moment, Lance because he was a pervert and Keith because… well, because Lance was inside of him, and it felt awesome . Lance being inside of his ass was kind of the goal of the entire night here, and so the slow tease of being rimmed; licked open and sucked out and tongue-fucked, was all at once too much and not nearly enough.

It was certainly enough for Keith to be distracted by, to the point where the slick glide of a long finger slipping inside his ready hole after a few minutes was a complete surprise. He hadn't been making much more noise than some heavy breathing when it was just Lance's tongue, but Keith couldn't keep in his whine when he felt the prodding of that first curious finger, a sensation both intensely pleasurable and kind of awkward at the same time.

More awkward than Keith had expected, actually. He wasn't sure why, since it's not like he wasn't still all kinds of turned on at every touch of Lance's fingers on his skin. But there was something about this that was… different than last time Keith had asked Lance to finger him, and not just that he wasn't as ridiculous-close to coming this time. Was it because this was just a prelude to their real goal of the night? Was Keith like… nervous to go all the way?

As absurd as the idea seemed when he'd been waiting and actively fantasizing about this for freaking months now, Keith couldn't deny the knowledge that most of the shaking in his limbs right now was not from arousal. Lance still only had one oily finger inside slowly working Keith open to stretch out his rim, and the pleasure just wasn't enough to distract him from his own reeling thoughts, especially when the only sound in the room was the wet squelch of lube and his own heavy breathing.

What if… what if they were jumping into this too fast? What if it didn't go well and the whole thing was just a miserable exercise in trying? What if… it changed something between them, like starting to have any sex in the first place had? What if tomorrow everyone looked at Keith and would just be able to see it on him, to tell what the two of them did tonight? Which, if they DID fuck up then he could like end up limping tomorrow and then of COURSE they'd all know…

Oh god, or what if the only thing it changed was Keith, letting himself fall deeper and deeper into this only for Lance to feel nothing and once again to leave Keith alone , always and eternally alone.

"L-Lance," Keith was saying, voice embarrassingly thin. "Lance it's too quiet in here, the silence is driving me friggin' insane."

Lance's hand paused. "Uhhh… I'm sorry?"

"Don't apologize, just…" Oh god, if he asked Lance to talk he'd probably come up with some really dirty shit to say and this was nooooottt a good time for that, it'd just be weird instead of hot since Keith was secretly kind of freaking out. "Could you…" his face flushed in embarrassment, and he turned his head into the bedsheets to quietly request, "like, sing for me or something? I just need… something to focus on."

From the corner of his eye he watched as Lance turned a matching shade of red to his own, another "UhhhmMM," squeaking out of him. "S-sing? Like, sing what?"

"I don't care, anything! I just need something to listen to other then… LUBE SQUELCHING."

A strained noise, "UM, yeah, I can, uh see why that…" He coughed, cutting himself off. "Okay, uh… Destapa el chaimpaigne," he started in an awkward, off-key sort of squawk. "Apaga les luches - oh shit, I don't know the words to this one."

Keith didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry at this point. "Lance…"

"No, I got this! What do I know by heart, there's uh… You kill me a little bit when you don't answer the phone - oh shit that's not sexy, that song's depressing as hell."

"Anything, Lance! Any song! You can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for all I care, just pick one!"

Lance reeled back like he was offended, except for the part where he didn't actually go anywhere because he still had his middle finger shoved up Keith's hoo-ha. "Oh my God, Keith, I'm not singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while I fingerbang you, that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard of in my life! There are ten thousand songs about sex, Keith, we can do better than Twinkle Twinkle Little fuckin' Star!"

Laugh, Keith decided. This was way more hilarious than it was sad, and Keith was definitely laughing at this point. Lance made an awed little sound like "Whoa," when the chuckling started, reporting, "Holy shit I can like, feel you laughing around my finger."

"Yeah?" Keith grinned. "Think of how nice it'll feel when you make me laugh with your cock inside me instead."

It was Lance's turn to shiver, eyes blown wide. He leaned forward enough to steal Keith's lips in another kiss, curling the finger he had inside of Keith at the same time until Keith was breaking off the kiss with a soft moan.

"I know that it's late and I really must leave you alone... " Lance's voice was stronger this time, low and soft as he crooned the first verse right against Keith's lips. "But you're good to hold and I feel such a long way from home… "

Keith shivered, melting immediately into Lance's hand as it gently teased at Keith's insides. "There we go," he sighed, some of the nervous tension finally easing out of him. Not all of it, but… Lance was easy to focus on. His touch was gentle and the one finger didn't hurt at all yet, felt less weird and more natural inside of him by the second.

Plus, the longer Lance sang, the more confident he got in it and the easier it was for Keith to lose himself in his voice, whispered honey-sweet into Keith's ear like promises. Which meant that when Lance's fingertip finally brushed against his prostate Keith was far enough away from his body for it to come as a complete surprise.

The gasp tore through his body startled even Lance, who lost a note in his song when Keith clenched involuntarily around him. When he resumed again, he used the pause as an excuse to slip a second slick finger into Keith's very ready body, which put up only the most minor of resistances at the new stretch. " ...Please let me stay, and don't send me away, oh no, no…"

Lance's fingers, Keith decided, were certainly longer than his own, but also felt like they were actually probably thinner than his, now that he's had a good feel for both. He liked these ones either way, they were gentle and dexterous and carefully prodded around to test where exactly Keith's prostate was without hitting it too often or too hard and overstimulating him. There was after all, a certain stinging and do-I-need-to-pee? kind of pressure that came with that particular spot, a problem that would be far overwhelmed by pleasure after time but for right now, well… Yeah, gentle was good.

"Hold me now my heart is aching… " Somewhere in his melting into the bedsheets it occurred to Keith that this song seemed kind of familiar, come to think of it... "And until the dawn is breaking, love me tonight… "

Wait a minute. Keith's brow furrowed and he opened his eyes to see the side of his face where he was hovering close to Keith. "Something is burning inside… "

"Is that -" Keith interrupted shortly.

"Something that can't be denied…"

"Are you singing Tom Jones at me?"

Lance blinked, drawing back enough to be able to look Keith in the eye. "Yeah, what's wrong with that? Mr. Tom Jones, I'll have you know, has been a great seducer of many for generations!"

"How many generations? Is that guy still alive ?"

"'Is he still' - my God, the lack of respect here! Do you have any ideas how many panties that man has had thrown at him?"

"...No, and I don't want to?"

"Blasphemy! How do you continually prove how bad your taste is, I swear it's just to test me." Lance clicked his tongue like a schoolteacher, and Keith let a fresh giggle snort out of him.

"My dating you should be the first indication of my tastes," Keith flirted back with a helpless little grin, reaching up to grab one of Lance's shoulders and yank him back down for a kiss.

Lance sunk cheerfully into the kiss, sucking for a few indulgent moments on Keith's tongue before letting Keith break this kiss with a surprised gasp when Lance wiggled the two fingers he had in Keith's ass like he was trying to tickle him from the inside.

Oh, those fingers… How could Lance be so good with his hands? How was i so easy for him to reduce Keith to a puddle with just the simplest of touches? He was so weak.

"I can't let you out of my sight Darling, love me tonight..." Lance picked up again softly, which did nothing in the way of helping Keith not be a puddle of horny goo. Well, okay, liquefying Keith WAS sort of the point of this since they were trying to get him loose enough to take Lance's admittedly substantial cock. Still, it was… weird for Keith, being this… relaxed? Loose? Quivery? ... Vulnerable ?

But odder still was the fact that it wasn't a BAD kind of vulnerable. Keith may have been totally defenselessly exposed but Lance was right there. His voice was there singing to Keith and his naked body right there close enough to warm Keith's skin and his fingers were right there rubbing curiously but deliberately over his prostate, and as long as all of those things kept being true then Keith didn't mind how exposed and defenceless he was. Because Lance was just as naked as he was right now, both figuratively and, uh. You know. Literally, they were both naked, also.

"Ready for three," Keith directed after only a few more moments of indulging in the feel of Lance's thin elegant fingers. "Doesn't hurt at all, I can take more."

Lance hummed in understanding. "Anything my darling wishes," he agreed with cheerful softness, easing his ring finger in with the first two in short time. "Here in my arms you belong… How can this feeling be wrong..?"

The stretch of Lance's third finger stung a bit, but only in that good way Keith already liked to begin with. The fact that it was Lance's fingers this time instead of his own was more than sexy enough to keep Keith from finding the pain to be truly uncomfortable, and when Keith had the guts to open his eyes Lance's handsome face was hovering inches above his own and carefully watching Keith to see how he reacted to every curious twitch and slide of long fingers.

"Darling be kind because I'm out of my mind over you… "

Everything had gone far past awkward and nerve-wracking to start feeling really, really good. Good to the point where Keith was biting his lip to keep himself from moaning, half out of shyness and half because he didn't want to drown out the honey-sweet sound of Lance's voice still singing softly in his ear. The stretch was so good and Lance's hands were one of the sexiest parts about him and he wasn't even being shy about lovingly stroking and flickering his fingertips over Keith's prostate, and soon he was such a pathetic shaking mess Keith was starting to fear he'd come before they could get Lance's cock anywhere near inside of him, and Keith needed to feel that tonight so so badly.

"Four," he demanded this time, keeping his eyes pinched shut and realizing the arm he'd had around Lance's neck had falled down to cover his own face in unconscious embarrassment. "Give me another finger Lance, need you to open me up fast."

Lance paused at that, hesitant. "Uh… that seems… like overkill. Will four of my fingers even fit in you?"

Keith moved his forearm from where it was laying across his eyes to sit up a bit and shoot a raised eyebrow at his boyfriend. "I don't know how big you THINK your dick is, Lance, but I'm definitely gonna need all four before we're gonna get that thing to fit inside me."

He had the fortune to watch Lance's face light up in a blush, glancing down to his own re-awakening erection as if to confirm Keith's implication. "O-oh. Um, yeah I'll uh… take care of everything, okay. Gotcha."

It was that fourth finger that finally did actually hurt, not that Keith would dare to admit as much. The point was to get the part where it hurt out of the way NOW so he could be loose and open enough to really enjoy Lance being properly inside him right away as soon as they were joined. Look, Keith had been REALLY looking forward to this, okay? He fucking carried a pickle jar full of lube all the way back from the city to his bedroom where many many people in between saw, and he'd done it for THIS god damn it. He'd put himself through that embarrassment because sex with Lance was just that high priority in Keith's life.

And Lance was so, so good to Keith. Touched him with such care and reverence, taking every motion slow and gentle like Keith was something fragile and valuable, like he was trying to commit everything about Keith's body to memory all in one night when they really had all the time in the world.

"Baby now the pain is stronger…I can't wait a moment longer. Love me tonight…"

Even with the too-wide stretch of all four of Lance's thin fingers the pain was nowhere near matching how good Keith felt right now. Plus it wasn't just the physical sensations that felt so amazing Keith also just wasn't used to being in this kind of good mood - didn't know how to handle being this close to someone, in every sense of the word. It was…

"Let me love you baby, let me love you baby, let me love you tonight…"

Keith gasped as Lance's fingers stayed in deep to flicker against his prostate, a ruthless attack that had his back arching and hips twitching. Oh, okay, he was… he was gonna come soon. It was time.

"Lance," he crowed out, not even embarrassed by his own broken voice. "Lance, stop, I need you to stop."

Lance froze immediately, eyes wide with panic. "Did I - are you okay?!"

Keith wanted to laugh again. Maybe did. "I'm fine," he promised with a watery smile, putting one hand on Lance's shoulder to help pull himself into sitting. "I'm just already ready for you, didn't want you to make me come yet."

Lance blinked wide and burst out into a blush again, a truly adorable expression. "Oh, uh - really? Like… right now, ready?"

Okay, now Keith really DID laugh. He pushed Lance by the shoulders to tip him back until he was sitting down, too, before going even further to climb straight into Lance's lap. Ah, excellent, Keith didn't have any idea how long they'd spent with Lance's fingers in there but it had been enough for a hard cock to be the greeting Keith found pressing against his backside as he settled onto his boyfriend's thighs with a grin. "What else would I mean?"

"I don't know I'm just nervous," Lance admitted with a short laugh of his own, wrapping his arms low around Keith's waist and pressing their foreheads together. "I've fantasized about this moment like, twenty million times but in my imagination I was always all suave and shit, I still never figured out how to deal with the reality of you actually liking me back."

Keith's smile was actively hurting his cheeks at this point. "I dunno, I think maybe the fact that we're both nervous is what's making this moment… perfect?" Oh god that sounded corny. "Or at least, the way I wanted it," he amended sheepishly.

There was a certain look in Lance's eye that let Keith know he was about to be kissed senseless, an awestruck sort of want before Lance would inevitably surge forth to take Keith's lips. It was easy to relax into the kiss the same way it was easy to relax in Lance's arms, and Keith didn't bother breaking off from it as he reached behind his own body to take a steadying hold of Lance's erection.

He'd meant what he'd said to Lance. The fact that neither of them were actually confident right now was what made it easy to guide the head of Lance's cock to set it against his rim, which Keith could already feel loose and twitching from Lance's enthusiastic fingers. Lance squeezed Keith's hips and sucked on his tongue, and when he felt the warm shiver run down his spine from Lance's mouth through his he sunk down.

The kiss, naturally, was broken by both of them gasping at once, as the head of Lance's cock pushed through Keith's rim to fit easily inside, though no more of his cock was able to yet follow through to chase inside the narrow space. But the head was warm and spongy-soft and alive and Lance , and Keith was eager to sink down further to force a few more centimeters - or maybe inches it was hard to judge how much there was left when Lance' dick was so unnecessarily large like it was (1) - inside until he was sitting halfway onto Lance's cock and already had to stop just to breathe.

"Shit, you feel so amazing already." Lance rubbed soothing circles into his lower back, helping steady Keith's half-squatting kneel until he was ready to try and take the last stretch. "Doing okay, Kitten?"

Rather than annoying him like it would have weeks ago, the nickname only endeared Keith with a swell of affection for its familiarity. Better than if his boyfriend had settled on 'baby,' he decided with a smile. Keith could deal with being a kitten if he was Lance's kitten. "I'm fine," he assured. The pain, he noted with interest, was a different type than when he'd used his variety of cheap plastic and silicone toys. Lance's cock was somehow soft all over while being rock hard at the same time, and when he wiggled his hips he easily sunk down a few more centimetres to take in more. "Its feels… good."

That was actually kind of a total understatement. Keith didn't just feel good, he felt hornier than he'd ever been in his life, and warmer than he'd ever been in so many different ways he was a little worried he might just burst into flames. But like… pink ones that tickled instead of burned. Tingly pink flames. Okay he was starting to sound delirious again but to be fair it's not like any of Keith's blood was in his brain right now.

Lance leaned up to plant a kiss on Keith's nose, higher than Lance for once because Keith was sitting on his thighs. "Take a deep breath?"

Without really thinking about it Keith complied, drawing in a slow breath through his nose and holding it for a few long seconds. When he did finally exhale it was also when Lance tightened the grip he had on Keith's hips, using it to yank Keith downward onto his cock at the same moment Keith's body relaxed out the air in his lungs.

A little squeak of shock chirped out of Keith as he bottomed out, and when he opened his eyes again Lance was offering him a shaky smile inches from his own face.

There was something about that smile that made Keith viscerally aware he wasn't alone. It was a fact that should be a given, obviously, but… Keith wasn't used to not being alone yet. And right now Keith was horny and vulnerable and wonderfully stuffed full and he wasn't alone, and he'd just… he'd never…

Felt so completely and utterly connected with someone.

Lance wasn't just close to Keith right now, the way they'd tangled together a hundred times before. Lance was actually INSIDE of Keith, their bodies joined in a more mind-blowingly intimate connection than he'd ever even imagined. He could feel Lance, feel how hot he was and could even feel his heartbeat, not just pressed against his chest but throbbing inside him at the same time and jesus it was all too much. There were honestly no words to describe it, this bizarre feeling of searing-hot unity.

"Shit," Lance gasped against Keith's throat. "Shit shit shit, I've never… I've never done it without a condom before, you feel fucking INCREDIBLE." Hands running greedily up and down Keith's back. "I think I can feel your fucking heartbeat."

Keith couldn't help it - he laughed. "Yeah," he sighed back, one hand wrapping around the back of Lance's head to wind fingers into short curls of hair. "Yeah, me too. You feel really… I really lo- like how close you feel. All the way inside of my body close."

Lance shivered, which Keith could tell because he felt how both of their bodies shook from it. "I definitely get that. To be honest I don't think I've even been all the way inside anyone like this, girls…" he broke off into a laugh. "There's never been enough room before."

It was Keith's turn to feel a shudder, which surely Lance could feel when it reached the base of his spine and made Keith twitch inside. "Yeah, you're… really fucking deep," he agreed in a breathy rasp, lips curling in a small smile.

They took a moment to just sort of giggle stupidly at each other, and Keith spread his thighs a little to settle more comfortably in Lance's lap. Even the slight shift of Lance's cock moving inside of him while he sat made one or possibly both of them whimper, the sensation not even really pleasurable as much as straight-up mind blowingly intense.

It was still the kind of intense that had Keith dizzy from how close he was to coming. He was so relaxed and so wound up at the same time, sexy and terrified and confident and completely un-self-aware all at the same time because Keith had somehow forgotten how many conflicting things he could feel at once when Lance put his hands on him.

Lance kissed him again, slow and sweet and adoring. And when he moved it was just as gentle, just the slightest roll of his hips under Keith's. Keith only just barely managed to bite back his whimper to hold the kiss, the hands looped around Lance's neck winding unconsciously tighter to keep their bodies pressed close while he shuddered helplessly under the onslaught of sensation.

He didn't even have time to get his bearings, because Lance didn't stop moving, little shifts of his hips that moved his cock where it sat inside Keith until it was once again putting pressure right on Keith's prostate, a tiny change and the slightest touch against that spot and Keith had supernovae exploding inside from his eyelids to his toes. He didn't know how loud he screamed, but he hardly had mind to consider it when he was spilling a mess of thin clear precome out of his cock like a fountain as the rest of his body throbbed violently around Lance's erection.

"Whuh?" Lance intoned curiously as Keith collapsed forward to bury his face in Lance's collarbone, pretty sure he was still coming even a full fifteen seconds later. "What the f- is that - was that - did you just come?!"

Keith panted into his boyfriend's bare skin. "Mm-hm," he confirmed, swallowing thickly as his limbs shook. "Y-yeah, gimme a second."

"What did we suck my dick for if YOU were gonna come in two seconds, Keith?! You're sexy and feel amazing but I'm still ROCK fucking hard right now…"

Keith just giggled into his collarbone, still nowhere near down from his high. "It's fine, we don't have to stop. Prostate-only orgasms are like, an ENTIRELY different thing." He wiggled, rubbing his own still-hard cock against Lance's stomach meaningfully. "As long as I don't come from here I can keep going pretty much all night."

"Jesus quiznak," Lance swore helplessly, the arousal thick in his voice. "What in god's name am I supposed to do with you, Keith?"

Keith found enough of his spine again to sit upright even through the still-ongoing thrum of pleasure, smirking at his stunned boyfriend. "Fuck me, obviously."

He saw Lance's eyes blow wide, pupils dilating before his vision narrowed on Keith with a flash of desire. And it's a good thing they never moved from the bed because suddenly Keith found himself on his back, Lance pinning him to the sheets in one smooth flip. The sudden kiss wasn't even as distracting as the movement of Lance's cock inside him, which didn't halt with the change of positions but continued rocking into him in a slight but steady grind.

Keith broke off the seal of their lips with a moan, and Lance just moved on to latch his mouth to Keith's neck instead. It wasn't a proper fucking yet, just enough movement for both of them to feel good without really actually pulling out. They were both still content with Lance's cock buried deep like this, Keith not quite loose enough yet for any more vigorous action anyway since he'd been so impatient to get Lance inside to spread him wide open all delicious like this. He wasn't even hitting Keith's prostate anymore from this angle, but it still felt so ridiculously good Keith wasn't even impatient to divert him.

For right now he was completely surrounded by Lance, in his arms and under his mouth and full of his cock and it was all so warm Keith felt like he wanted this moment to go on forever. The pressure was so intense and Lance's cock was so hot and so firm and taking up so much of Keith's insides it was hard to feel anything but that thick weight moving wonderfully inside him, even with so many other things going on.

Keith's ankles wrapped around Lance's lower back, hooking together in a lazy hold while Lance slowly rocked into him, kissing and biting at whatever part of Keith's skin he could get under his lips. He kept that same unhurried pace even as his movements started to plunge deeper, pulling out a few short inches before sliding easily back into Keith's greedy embrace, throbbing as it tried to swallow Lance up whole.

"Fuck, Keith," Lance sounded awed again, hands sliding eagerly over sweaty pale flesh. "You're the best thing I've ever felt. Best thing that's ever happened to me, I don't know how..."

He didn't finish the thought, but Keith felt like he had the general gist of it. Knew exactly what Lance was talking about, in fact, because he was feeling pretty similar things himself, and even more than that when Lance said that ridiculous line about Keith being the best thing that ever happened to him Keith, for the first time, actually believed he meant it.

Ah… he needed to return it. Needed Lance to know how he felt, but he'd gone from coming his brains out to being slowly screwed into oblivion and he'd never been good with articulating his feelings into words to begin with. So instead all Keith managed was "Me too," a desperate and thin-voiced cry that went muffled into Lance's shoulder anyway. "Dunno what I did to -" a hard grind inside that had Keith's toes curling. "... To deserve this."

Lance kissed him again, stole Keith's lips to plunge his tongue inside and massage it lovingly against Keith's own. Keith shuddered a deep happy sigh through his nose and curled his arms around Lance's shoulders even tighter, lifting his legs higher up Lance's back in useless attempt to somehow get closer. While that was hardly possible the move certainly had its own impact, a burst of starshatter behind his eyelids as Lance once again ended up right on his prostate.

Keith moaned into Lance's mouth, nearly biting both of their tongues. Lance did break the kiss then but it was only so he could smirk down deviously at Keith, and the next time the head of his cock brushed against that spot Keith knew it was deliberate. And even though the pace didn't change from his slow deep pushes Keith was already reduced to quivering, every precise press aimed right at his weak spot with relentlessness.

"Ah - ahn, oh Lance," Keith heard himself sighing helplessly, and decided instantly he didn't care enough to be embarrassed. "There, there, that's it right there, so good…"

Lance chuckled again, but more breathless and delirious like he couldn't believe his real life was happening to him than if he were making fun of Keith. "Jesus, you're so responsive to everything ," He kissed Keith's neck again, but immediately turned it into a bite as he hissed out a barely-audible, "Makes me wanna see if I can turn your screams into sobbing, you know?"

Keith gasped, so low it was silent as Lance finally started to fuck him faster, speed increasing bit by bit like he couldn't help himself. And Keith couldn't help the whimper, because instead of just feeling his prostate he was feeling his own entire body right now, lit up with a buzz of adrenaline or endorphins or whatever it was that fired up when you were being fucked so well you couldn't even form words anymore.

Another flood of overwhelming… overwhelmingness as Keith suddenly realized he was coming again, a pressure and release that built up all at once and went on for ages after, only seeming to grow more intense as Lance continued to fuck him straight through it. Somehow he could feel his orgasm even in his dick even though it wasn't actually what was coming or being touched right now, a strange but sexy feeling that made him want to grab his own cock and ignore it to be fucked forever at the same time.

"Fuck, did you already come again already?" Lance panted in awe. "We just started, how are you even DOING this?"

Heh - he said that like he wasn't the one currently pounding against Keith's prostate with the relentless aim of a sniper. Yeah, how was KEITH doing this, he asked. The laugh actually did end up bubbling out of Keith's throat at that, although it didn't last long as another surprise orgasm followed the first like he'd never stopped coming in the first place. In fact, he was pretty sure he hadn't. Just came twice straight through.

Keith was shaking and yowling again, he noticed after a few long moments of floating outside his own brain. Not that becoming aware of reality again involved anything loosely resembling the end of his orgasm, because even toned down in intensity the waves of pleasure at no point stopped rolling over Keith for a few long minutes after, and he rode it out the same way he was riding Lance right now - with his head thrown back into the sheets and his ankles digging into Lance's back.

God, he loved everything about this. Not constant orgasms, obviously, but how close he and Lance were right now. It was like all the fun of masturbating and all the comfort of cuddling with his boyfriend at the same time and then amplified by ten, and Keith was pretty sure after tonight it'd be impossible for any of their friends to get him and Lance out of bed pretty much ever again. Every one of his senses was filled on overdrive, Lance's sweat so close and so strong he couldn't just smell it but even taste it through the leftover spunk in his mouth. Lance's voice was dropped low and breathing desperate pleasured grunts right into his ear, and when Keith had enough mind left in him to open his eyes and focus all he could see was sweaty tan skin and blue eyes looking straight at him like Keith was the only thing in the world right now.

Oh god, and his cock . It was so big and so deep inside Keith and so warm and so alive, pushing in hard and constant and wonderful, Keith could feel every inch of it sliding against his insides as they greedily throbbed around Lance and tried to pull him back inside. His weight was pressing into Keith now, pushing his leg up against his chest to keep that perfect angle he was fucking into Keith with until his ended up with his calf slung over Lance's shoulder. When it was too impractical to kiss at Keith's neck and collarbone anymore Lance turned his head to kiss Keith's knee instead, as if any moment he didn't have his mouth on Keith's skin was a moment wasted.

"God you're so pretty," Lance mumbled against the inside of Keith's leg. "Wish I could show you your face right now, all cute and sweaty and red and - you just really look like you're enjoying it. So soft for me." His eyes flickered down to Keith's leaking prick, gazing at it hungrily for a short moment before continuing down to stare at Keith's rim where it was stretched open wide around his cock, watching himself fuck Keith in slow strokes. Mindful of this fact, Keith arched his back to work his ass up in lewd rolls of hips to swallow Lance's cock more theatrically, and with a slight twist that put pressure on one side of his passage as it dragged against his slick insides.

Lance shuddered above him, and Keith bit his lip to hide his smirk. "Fuck, Kitten, you're gonna kill me like this and I swear I'll fuckin' thank you for it." A stutter in the jerk of his hips, and Keith liked how it felt. "And you feel even better than I even imagined, so gorgeous and perfect taking my cock."

Even though it was the kind of thing Lance had generally said before, Lance's words still made Keith heat up in embarrassment so fast and so hot he heard himself whining for it. "Lance," he whimpered piteously, staring up at his boyfriend with glassy unfocused eyes. "C'mon, please."

Keith himself wasn't sure what he was pleading for but it made Lance chuckle breathlessly, a shaking he felt vibrate from Lance's chest down through Keith's to go straight to his spine. "I've got you, sweetie, Just relax and let me take care of you, eh?"

He WAS relaxed, as much as he could be when his entire body was tight as a wind-up toy with a stuck key. But his mind was cloudy and incapable of doing anything other than experience the moment, gasping into every thrust and shaking in Lance's arms.

And then the wind-up toy popped and Keith was coming again with a shout, the pressure against his prostate once again hurling him into another surprise orgasm as he dissolved into the mattress with an ear-rending scream.

Gradually though, he noticed a tick of strain in one of his hips from being pressed up almost to his chest with all of Lance's weight on it. Keith tried to ignore it, because come on, he was getting dicked good right now and a little bit of pain was nowhere near worth stopping for. Except that once he noticed it, it became impossible to UNnotice, and suddenly not only was he not coming anymore but Keith didn't think he was gonna get back to that Nice Place again until they fixed this.

"Mn, Lance, wait," Keith bit out, grabbing a handful of chocolate hair to tug at it and call his lover's attention.

Lance stopped moving but didn't pull out, just sat deep to blink down at Keith in confusion. "Keith?"

Mm. Still felt nice just sitting there, though. "Get off me, my leg's cramping up."

Lance, quite unnecessarily, launched himself backwards off of Keith, scrambling backwards to stutter out "Fuck, did I hurt you?!"

Keith let a breathless little snicker as he sat up, leaning forward to plant a reassuring kiss to Lance's nose. "I'm fine, I just gotta turn over to give my hip a break."

Hm, what was the best way to do this now… Trying to support himself on his knees would be too much effort right now and just laying on his stomach sounded like it wouldn't be that much better for his hip. He ended up deciding the bed was a good enough height from the ground that he could kneel on the floor and lay himself flat over the sheets whole torso splayed down to pin his own cock nicely between himself and the sheets.

"Alright, this is good," he announced to Lance, tossing his head backwards to nod to the empty space behind himself meaningfully. "Put it back in."

Lance burst out laughing, which Keith was currently too gooey-relaxed to mind in the least bit even though he knew it was his own expense again. Whatever, Lance's laugh was gorgeous and he was already swinging himself off the bed to mount Keith, planting affectionate kisses all over the small of his back.

Keith sighed happily and wiggled his hips, delighted by the idea of Lance's eyes trained on the slight shake of his ass, and even more pleased when Lance proved that he had indeed been watching when he landed a light playful smack on Keith's left cheek. Keith's giggle was broken off into moan when Lance was suddenly lining up and pushing the head of his cock back against Keith's twitching rim again, pushing all the way in in one easy glide that reduced them both to shaky moans.

Ooh… When he had his legs closed like this instead of all spread open around Lance's hips his cock felt even bigger, and without the distraction of all of the rest of Lance's body Keith's attention was now focused solely on that wonderful fleshy intrusion. Lance settled his hands on Keith's hips, thumbs digging into the soft meat of Keith's ass as he started in on another slow grind, pushing in deep to fill up every bit of Keith's scorching insides before pulling out all nearly all the way to the head again on every perfectly-timed shove.

"Ooohohooooo hhhhh ~" Keith moaned directly into his bedsheets, rubbing his forehead into the mattress mindlessly as he popped his hips up to rock back against Lance's thrusts. Lance's aim was as ever perfect, hitting Keith's prostate straight-on with every movement, brushing his head against it both on the slide in and and withdrawal of every increasingly vigorous strike. And since he was pulling out far enough to put pressure on Keith's sensitive rim and then going deep enough to choke Keith on his dick, that meant every single inch of every thrust was filled with mind-shattering intensity, ever changing sources of pleasure being hit over and over again in a relentless cycle of ecstasy.

A constant stream of noise was pouring out of Keith and straight into the bed sheets, which were already getting tangled up just from the little jolts of Keith's naked body sliding against them with the increasingly powerful movements from Lance pounding into him. He was fucking Keith faster and harder now like he couldn't help himself, his own fountain of praise pouring unchecked from his lips.

"Keith, Keith, kitten, you're so good," Lance's voice was deep and breathy and mindless, and Keith loved every word of it. "So tight, can't believe it, so pretty and so sweet for me." The grip on one of Keith's hips changed, Lance squeezing himself a handful of Keith's ass and holding onto it in a way Keith hoped left finger-shaped marks on his skin tomorrow. "And your ass is so perfect, could watch you fuck yourself on my cock like this forever."

Oh, was that a thing he was doing? Yes, Keith realized, he was indeed rocking his hips back eagerly, slamming his ass back against Lance's hips in a hedonistic attempt to get more, more, more. More of Lance's body, more of Lance's words, more of all of it and all of him, until Keith was drowning in it all with nothing left of himself but mindless gasps of pleasure.

"Stared at you for so long, still can't believe I'm really inside you." He leaned forward, draping himself over Keith's back til he was laying on him chest to spine where he could reach the nape of his neck for another wet messy kiss. But Lance also leaned forward so he could wrap one hand around Keith's jaw, pulling his face up and out of the bed sheets where he could softly demand, "C'mon, Keith, talk to me, sweetheart. Wanna hear how much you like it."

Keith was currently unable to articulate how much he liked it, because Keith was coming again and only capable of an animalistic howl of ecstasy while his body convulsed joyously under Lance's. Lance had this way of hitting his prostate on every strike no matter now much either of them were wiggling around, and the endless abuse of that spot had once again surprised him with a totally unannounced orgasm that tingled all the way down his spine to his toes.

"Fuck, did you just come again?" Lance moaned into his nape. "I can feel it every time you do that, you're throbbing around me right now."

"Laaance," Keith keened in a way he'd be humiliated by if he had half a brain right now. He wouldn't have even been able to tell you what he was whining for , considering this moment was somewhere around everything he'd ever hoped and dreamed for.

And Keith meant that seriously - before he'd had access to internet porn the only examples of gay sex Keith had ever seen had been in movies or jokes on T.V., and therefore had inclined him to believe for a few early years that you could only do it from behind. So pretty much all of Keith's fantasies for a long time had involved being on his knees or bent over something, you know, sort of like exactly the position he was in right now. And even once he's realized more creative options exist this had still been his favorite to think about, something about it made him feel dirty and debauched and just sexy, in the rawest filthiest sense possible and he loved it.

And as often as he'd dreamed of being fucked by Lance like this, the reality was so much better. A little grosser, and a little more painful than in his imagination, but the sting was almost necessary since it only contrasted with all the good feelings to make everything that much more intense. Even the little things like Lance's breath on his neck and warm solid weight on his back making Keith feel so small was all almost more than Keith could handle. Every little thing he could hear and smell and feel somehow made everything seem so real when it was so nice it should have been like a dream, and Keith felt like he could go crazy from it all.

And then, just as Keith felt something building up like another cresting wave of ecstasy ready to crash, suddenly Lance wasn't moving anymore. Like, at ALL. He just stopped dead with a muffled curse, still seated all the way inside Keith where both of them were currently throbbing needily.

"Nng, Lance.." Keith tried, craning his head around to look him in the eye. "C'mon, why'd you stop? Felt so good, need you to keep fucking me…"

Lance shuddered and whimpered, pressing his forehead in between Keith's shoulder blades. "I'm sorry, I just." A short breath of laughter. "Trying not to come."

Oh, well that made sense, Keith guessed. Ah, but at the same time, would that really be a bad thing? Keith would love for this to go on forever of course, but as soon as Lance had stopped Keith had become aware of his own erection pressed between his belly and the bedsheets, calling for attention and aching with the need for release. Going all night sounded like a nice idea, but finally blowing his load and passing out into a sex coma to finally give that sore hip Lance was currently grabbing onto a rest sounded pretty fucking appealing, too.

Not to mention he'd get to see Lance coming all that much sooner. So far he'd only gotten to see it once, all the other times he'd been facing the wrong direction or too busy concentrating on sucking his brains out. That one time on the couch his wrecked face had been so beautiful, all open-mouthed gasps as he tried to keep his eyes open to stare at Keith the entire time…

Yeah, okay, Keith officially had Plans for the next five minutes of their lives.

"Mn, when you do finish," Keith panted, licking his lips and craning his head around to look at Lance and pretend he wasn't still slightly rocking backwards into him in an unconscious attempt to get more dick. "I don't mind if you come inside, since I'm already a mess."

"What the fuck, Keith" Lance whined, looking visibly and hilariously distressed. "I just said I was trying NOT to come, you can't say shit like that!"

Keith snickered, sitting up to push Lance off his back. Lance went easily if with slight confusion, letting Keith get up and then further allowing him to manhandle him to flip him over so that Lance was the one lying on the bed now.

Oh yeah, this had been a good idea, Keith grinned as he climbed back onto Lance's lap. Look at this, miles of tan skin and sweaty muscles and an expression like Keith was the most awe-inspiring thing he'd ever seen; god was Keith's man ever sense in wasting such a perfect view, Keith smirked to himself as he lowered himself back down onto his boyfriend's cock. "My turn~" he purred out as playfully as he could when he was still half-way to wrecked himself, making a show of wrapping his own fingers delicately around his cock to finally start stroking himself off.

"Oh my fucking lord," Lance gasped as Keith finally bottomed out, starting up the slow roll of his hips immediately. It took a few long moments for Keith to find the right angle to go back to hitting his prostate again and when he did find it staying there involved leaning back to brace himself on one of Lance's thighs with the free hand that wasn't currently wrapped around his own dick. But oh was the extra effort worth it, because everything was all lining up perfectly to combine into a volcano of bliss that set a buzz running from his navel down to his toes, until he was literally shaking just from how good it felt."Fuck, kitten, if you keep this up I'm not gonna be able to hold it!"

"Good," Keith moaned, rolling his hips even harder to drive Lance's cock against his sweet spot. "I can't either, wanna see your face when you come." He wasn't able to keep his voice from cracking when he said it but that didn't lessen the impact, because he felt Lance's shiver all the way inside him. Perfect… god, everything was perfect. His ass was stuffed full and his cock was leaking and throbbing under his hand, his balls had tightened up and his head was swimming and this was gonna be the best fucking orgasm of his life.

The exact moment Keith let his eyes fall closed Lance startled him with a sudden surge of movement, not just bucking his hips up into Keith but swooping forward to sit back upright again where he could plant his hands on Keith's waist. And then they were face to face again, and Keith couldn't help the giggle that snorted out of his nose.

"We ended up right back where we started," Keith observed with a grin, letting Lance knock his hand away from his own cock for him to take over squeezing it.

As he was looping his arms around Lance's neck his boyfriend pouted adorably, and absolutely in no way stopped rutting up his hips to fuck Keith's ass with something close to desperation while he said, "I couldn't get my hands on you from down there."

Keith just snickered and pulled Lance forward for a kiss, biting his thin lower lip teasingly. And then, because he was so so ready to let loose and lose himself in the ride, Keith closed his eyes and relaxed, letting Lance take over the pace they were moving and the pressure around his neglected cock.

His hips were moving automatically by now, tight rocks to help Lance reach his prostate from just the right angle. Other than that Keith really didn't need to have anything remotely close to a coherent thought in his head, and as such was quite content just lean into Lance's body and scream, letting the pleasure take over all of his senses with abandon.

Keith's entire body was shaking, thrumming with electricity that set every nerve on fire. Not just shaking even, but going beyond that practically into convulsing, his body jerking wildly at the response of every hard strike against his prostate, completely unable to handle the sensations it was overloaded with. If Keith noticed he certainly didn't care, finally lost entirely to the heat of sex and capable only of sinking into it. Even Lance's presence was only a figure at the back of his mind while Keith's universe narrowed down to awareness of only his pelvis, from his straining cock inside his urethra and down through his sac only to spread upwards to every single millimeter of his ass from where Lance sat inside him.

And then, something broke through the dizzying fog of lust. Lance's voice was slowly entering his awareness, words filtering delayed into Keith's ears. "Keith, Keith, baby, so good for me, so sweet and so pretty," he was gasping mindlessly. "Tu cuerpo es increíble, te lo juro, quiero estar aquí para siempre ." He was shaking same as Keith, the rhythm of his cock going wild as he chased completion inside Keith. " Yes yes yes , there you go that's it, just a little more honey-"

God, Lance was so cute. Completely mindlessly wrecked, and instead of animalistic grunts and whiny repetitions of the sentiment 'fuck yeah' like most guys he was still sweet-talking Keith like he was trying to coax him out of his panties at the debutante ball. Did he even remember Keith didn't speak enough Spanish to understand half of what he was saying?

It was just so ridiculously Lance of him that it was actually funny, and soon Keith broke out into a full-blown fit of laughter that shook both of their bodies. And when Lance swore Keith's name loudly and buried his face in his collarbone while he trembled and came, Keith thought that that was a pretty damned fine way to end their night.

He was still seated all the way inside Keith, and still rocking his hips up even as Keith felt his cock throb and the pressure of a hot spill of come fill up his insides. And he kept his hand on Keith's dick the whole time too, so after only a few encouraging seconds of pleading on Keith's end there was enough stimulation on his prostate while Lance softened up that Keith was able to find his release too, which rendered him somewhere around catatonic.

God, he loved this. He loved how this felt, he loved having sex , he loved...

Keith howled louder than he probably ever had in his life, paralyzed from the waist down as waves of the most intense pleasure imaginable washed over his body over and over like a crashing tide. If his string of prostate orgasms had been mind-blowing than this straight up blacked him out for a few seconds, every nerve in his body lighting up until the sensation teetered on the edge of painful, his frazzled brain too overloaded with bliss to even know how to process the sensations anymore.

Even with the unearthly load of come splashing between their bodies Keith's orgasm didn't stop, still wracking his entire body with tremors so powerful he felt like his bones had turned to chocolate and started to melt. There were stars behind his eyes and supernovas in his veins, his organs were liquid candy and no matter how many long seconds of Lance petting his hair passed all of it just kept on and on going forever, probably until Keith died from it all.

Lance collapsed backwards, arms still wrapped around Keith's shoulders but letting his cock slip free of Keith's bereft embrace. He felt his ass contracting, leaving a terribly empty feeling that was thankfully overshadowed by the fact that Keith kind of STILL hadn't stopped coming yet. Not that there was anything left in his own flaccid cock, but just because his entire being was still throbbing with the same fierce and magnificent ecstasy as the moment he'd spilled.

"Holy fucking crow," Lance panted into Keith's hair, spread out so they were both lying on the bed in a sweaty pile. "If that's what our first time was like, I don't even think I've been DOING sex right before this."

Keith giggled, because even with his body still humming with passion his mind was slowly drifting back to the general vicinity of his head. Sort of. Lance sure was comfortable to lay on, huh? "That'll teach you to do it with people that aren't me, huh?"

Lance laughed, kissing the top of Keith's head. "I didn't even know I was gonna MEET you, Keith!"

"That's your own fault," Keith mumbled into Lance's chest. "Should have known to wait for me."

Which is how they both ended up giggling for the next few minutes, soft nonsensical snickers that jiggled both of them against each other in between lazy kisses, all while Keith was still throbbing pleasantly.

Eventually, Lance had to ruin it. "We gotta clean up before we fall asleep," he mumbled regretfully, soft fingertips running down Keith's spine in a slow meander. "I don't know if you have any idea how much Keith-iness came out of you, but both of us and the bed are all pretty much ruined right now. Like, cemented-to-the-sheets ruined."

"Mmmnot yet," Keith sleepily replied, wiggling to settle more heavily on top of Lance in a lazy effort to pin him down to keep him from leaving. "Still coming."

Lance's hand stilled on his back, lifting his head up to look down at Keith. "It's been like ten minutes!"

"Yeahhhh," he sighed dreamily, wondering how Lance had failed to notice he had never stopped actively trembling since they laid down. "S'the good stuff."

Lance's head flopped back onto the bed. "I can't even, with you." His voice was light and baffled.

Apparently having reached the end of his own afterglow, Lance ended up fidgeting under Keith in short time. "Kitten, honey, I don't want you to think I don't one hundred percent super love naked cuddling with you, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to ignore how gross we are when I can feel you like, drying onto my body from all our jizz, and there's… SO MUCH lube, Keith. Lube everywhere."

To spite Keith's valiant efforts to keep him right where he was, Lance was sitting up and he was sliding down his chest to fall into the… okay yeah, disgustingly damp mattress.

Keith groaned when Lance's feet hit the floor, sighing a mournful "Come on Kitten, get up," as he offered Keith a hand. "The sheets can change themselves but we gotta be the ones to walk to the shower for the rest."

He ended up accepting Lance's hand pulling him to his own feet, and in turn Lance accepted it when Keith immediately failed the use of his watery knees and toppled to lean his weight onto his boyfriend.

They fumbled over to the shower, which Keith was reluctant to admit did feel really fucking awesome right now on his still-very sensitive skin. Warm water tingling against his body while Lance soaped them both down, still carrying Keith's weight while he basked in an afterglow that seemed beautifully endless.

As they stumbled back into bed, Keith found himself feeling ridiculously regretful of having cleaned up so thoroughly. He hadn't noticed it much at the time, but the loss of Lance's come inside him made him feel oddly empty inside, and maybe it would have been nice to keep carrying a tiny bit of Lance inside him while they slept. Too late now, and settling into cool fresh sheets with Lance's warm naked body was still pretty much the closest thing to heavenly Keith had ever felt.

It was hardly a surprise they were both asleep in seconds.

When Keith woke up, it was at the same time he usually did in the mornings. Exhaustion and willpower weren't enough to fight his natural body clock, and so two hours before he needed to be anywhere or do anything he was blinking awake, body ready to begin his day well before his brain was.

But what wasn't normal was waking up to someone else there in bed with him.

Keith… had never slept next to anyone before. Not for longer than a quick nap, and never within breathing distance of someone for an entire night.

They weren't even cuddling and barely touching. They had their legs tangled together down at the foot and one of Lance's arms was pinned under Keith's weight, but Keith still was laying on the very edge of the mattress otherwise, like they had started out spooning until Keith got overheated and tried to roll away from the warm body smothering him. Yeah, definitely not used to sharing a bed yet.

Hardly surprising considering Keith's life until now. Sharing a bed with someone required trust on level's he'd never experienced before. To sleep next to someone was to let them see you at your most vulnerable, to give another person total access to your body while you had no awareness of the outside world and that had always been a kind of terrifying idea. But… beyond being nice, with Lance it just felt natural. Even though Keith's very being was against the idea of being touched while he was asleep, somehow he'd gotten more rest in less hours than he had in months.

Not that he intended to like, get up or anything. What was he gonna do, leave Lance by himself while he snuck off to go train? Not even Keith was that much of a freak.

He turned around to face Lance, then scooted even closer because the jerk had insisted on getting them clean before bed and so wasn't in proper smelling range like Keith liked him. Why did he have to have the one dude in the world who was fastidious about hygiene when Keith wanted him to be gross, it wasn't fair. What was the point of even liking guys if you didn't like how they smelled when they were sweaty, right?

Fortunately, they'd slept long enough for Lance to no longer be soap-scented, prolonged closeness of their bodies under the blanket having been enough for Lance to sweat through it. So when Keith buried his nose into his favorite nook in Lance's collarbone and took a deep breath he got a lungfull of natural boyfriend musk, dizzyingly perfect.

The breath came out in a long sigh that came with a shiver down Keith's spine, and when he scooted close enough to settle with their bodies pressed together the feel of naked skin on naked skin was even better than soaking in Lance's scent was.

There was something… strangely unique about it. They'd cuddled together dozens of times because they were both secretly needy, but never naked, and Keith had never imagined it'd make that much of a difference. But there was something about this that was so much more intimate than when they had clothes between them, like… like Keith could feel both of their heartbeats at once and with his entire body.

Like even though they were as close as physically possible without being inside of each other.. again, instead of feeling smothered Keith just wanted to be impossibly closer still.

He held his breath for a moment, and then tried to time out the release to match Lance's. After a few seconds Keith had synced up their breathing until their chests were rising and falling at the same gentle rhythm. He couldn't synchronize their heartbeats too, but somehow Keith thought that was even better. They both still had their own individual pace and flow, but with a little effort they could match themselves to each other in all the ways that mattered.

Yeah, Keith decided as Lance snorted sleepily and flopped his right arm low around Keith's waist. It was official. Lance had now lost all sleeping-by-himself privileges for the rest of forever - Keith was NOT going back to laying in this bed alone. He didn't even wanna get up right NOW, he couldn't imagine coming back here tonight and trying to fall asleep without Lance. He'd had too many nightmares until now, and if Keith was gonna wake up in a cold sweat he wanted a warm body there to hold him until he fell back asleep.

And… he wanted to be the warm body that held Lance through his nightmares.

There were still a lot of things they had to talk about. Hell, there were still a lot of arguments they needed to fight out, and Keith would probably indeed end up spending more than a few nights by himself because of them, knowing the two of them.

But… he understood how it worked now. Relationships weren't supposed to be magical and worry-free, they were a commitment that took work to maintain. But let's face it. Keith had never shied away from hard work or gave up just because the thing he wanted was difficult on the side of impossible. Anything worth doing at all was worth putting effort into, and Lance… Lance was worth so much . Lance was worth everything Keith could give and more.

Plus hey, let's face it; Keith didn't even WANT it to be easy. Perfect would be boring anyway.

The End

(1.) Not that Keith would ever ever at any point let Lance know he was well-endowed. Working on his boyfriend's self-esteem was one thing, but if Lance knew he was hung of all things he'd be annoying about it until the end of TIME.


End file.
